With Dr. Walter Freeman’s invention in the 1940s, psychologists could perform a transorbital lobotomy from the comfort of their office… with an ice pick through the eye. 

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In the 1940s, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz received the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking new treatment: the prefrontal lobotomy. His procedure was adopted by hospitals all over the world—but the treatment was controversial, and came to be known as one of medicine’s greatest mistakes. 

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In the early 1990s, Brooke Greenberg was born with a rare condition that kept her from aging. Her condition was accompanied by inexplicable conditions that doctors couldn't connect: seizures, ulcers, tumors… And by her 16th birthday, she was still the size of a toddler. 

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Over 100,000 people die from Alzheimer's Disease in the United States alone. Doctors are feverishly working to try and understand the disease in hopes of finding a cure. But the human brain holds many mysteries, and the results so far haven't been promising.

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In 1901, a 51-year-old woman named Auguste Deter shuffled into a German asylum. She had forgotten nearly everything about her life: where she lived, her husband's name, and how old she was. She was put into the care of revolutionary psychiatrist Alois Alzheimer.

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During WWII, two Polish scientists raced to find a vaccine to end typhus once and for all. In Switzerland, another scientist discovered the pesticidal possibilities of a chemical called DDT.

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In the sixteenth century, sporadic outbreaks of a deadly fever crippled armies and altered the political landscape of Western Europe. Centuries later, a British surgeon reshaped the world’s understanding of how disease spread—and uncovered the key to fighting typhus.

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