the surgical operation of cutting some of the nerve fibres in the frontal lobes of the brain: formerly used for treating mental illness
See also lobotomy (sense 2)
Word origin
C20: from leuco- (with reference to the white brain tissue) + -tomy
Examples of 'leucotomy' in a sentence
leucotomy
The leucotomy comes second, with 10 per cent of recoveries.
Mario Yahn 1946, 'Sobre a leucotomia pré-frontal de Egas Moniz', Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatriahttp://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X1946000300001&lng=en&tlng=en. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
The only tabulated death with leucotomy was due to operative hemorrhage as stated before.
Mario Yahn 1946, 'Sobre a leucotomia pré-frontal de Egas Moniz', Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatriahttp://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X1946000300001&lng=en&tlng=en. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)
In this group are already included 2 patients treated by leucotomy, one of them recovered.
Mario Yahn 1946, 'Sobre a leucotomia pré-frontal de Egas Moniz', Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatriahttp://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X1946000300001&lng=en&tlng=en. Retrieved from DOAJ CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode)