Bonus Episode 5: Appalachian Oddities

For our second October bonus episode, we speak with Katy Perrine, who is a paranormal tour guide at the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and the co-owner of Appalachian Oddities. During this episode, we cover the tools of the trade for paranormal investigations, stories about the asylum and the infamous lobotomist Walter Freeman, and how Katy’s work at the asylum and knowledge of the macabre led to the establishment of her wild and wonderfully weird business venture.
Appalachian Oddities is a store for the love of all things odd and interesting. They support and encourage talented artisans throughout the Appalachian region and beyond offer an interesting experience for anyone looking for something not always found in stores.
WALTER FREEMAN II
Freeman was an American doctor who developed the “revolutionary” medical procedure called the transorbital lobotomy. Modeled after Dr. Egas Moniz’s leucotomy procedure, Freeman’s "ice pick" lobotomy and was performed by inserting a metal pick near the corner of the eyes and moving the pick in an arc to sever the connections of the prefrontal cortex in the frontal lobe of the brain. Freeman claimed that this severed the bad connections in the brain, which were the cause of melancholy and mental disturbances, and allowed new positive connections to grow that would lead to positive behaviors. Though some lobotomized patients did see improvement, the procedure was vastly traumatic, leading to infection and often times death. Though his career ended in disgrace, Freeman performed an estimated 2,500 ice pick lobotomies in 23 states, including at least 787 lobotomies at the State Hospital (later the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum).
Episode Links:

• Appalachian Oddities webpage: https://www.appalachianodditieswv.com/
• Lunatic: The Rise and Fall of an American Asylum by Edward S. Gleason: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/25954367-lunatic
• “Psychosurgery, ethics, and media: a history of Walter Freeman and the lobotomy”, written by James P. Caruso and Jason P. Sheehan, DOI: 10.3171/2017.6.FOCUS17257: https://thejns.org/focus/view/journals/neurosurg-focus/43/3/article-pE6.xml

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