A Question of Initiative

One of the most hotly debated questions in psychiatric circles is how much harm, as well as good, is done to mental patients by prefrontal lobotomy--an operation inside the skull which cuts the lines of communication between some of the parts of the brain which govern social behavior. Now a closely related issue is to be threshed out in the courts: Does a normal, sane man suffer irreparable injury when such an operation is performed?

One night last February, Coley B. Chapman, 26, a Negro laborer for the Long Island Rail Road, was waiting for a train in Washington's Union Station when Terminal Policeman Carl Neuman tried to arrest him for drunkenness. In the scuffle, a bullet from Neuman's revolver entered Chapman's forehead, came out just behind the hairline.

At Gallinger Municipal Hospital it was found that the slug had pierced the right frontal lobe of the brain. Chapman began to have convulsions, and lost consciousness. In an operation, a partial cutting of the connective nerve fibers was inevitable. The surgical treatment was successful; physically, Chapman recovered fast.

But in a suit on file in U.S. District Court in Washington last week, Chapman complained that his memory now has big gaps in it and that his personality has changed for the worse. His capabilities have been reduced, he claims, along with his initiative, and that cuts down his chances of advancement. However, having been acquitted on charges of drunkenness and assault, Chapman still had enough initiative to sue the Washington Terminal Co. for $340,000.

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