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Is the point you're making that it was a somewhat common procedure? I'm sorry, there could have been a million of these done, and it doesn't lessen the culpability of the Kennedys or any other family that allowed it to be done. I think even in 1936, I'm not going to consent to having an ice pick "swish[ed] . . . back and forth like a windshield wiper" in my kid's brain. But, that's just me.

My point is that the procedure in 1948 was not only common it was concidered the only treatment for untreatable mental illness, by that I mean everything from schizophrenia to PMS.

In 1948 the 'science' of Psychology wasn't any more advanced than Haitian Voodoo and hasn't made any significant advances since.

Joe Kennedy, the scion of Boston Society; ex Chicago rum runner, founder of Seagrams Whiskey, ex ambassador to London during the Blitz of 1940-41 and Fenian/Nazi sympathizer, may have been many things but a medical expert he was not.

He fell victim to quack science. For that he is innocent