Adamo Mario (Amarro) Fiamberti was the first to perform a transorbital lobotomy (by accessing the frontal lobe of the brain through the orbits) in 1937. Fiamberti was later named Director of the Psychiatric Hospital of Varese, when it was opened in 1964.
Biography
Amarro Fiamberti, (Stradella, 10 September 1894 – Feltre, 31 August 1970) was an Italian psychiatrist who was the first to perform a transorbital lobotomy operation in 1937, accessing the frontal lobes of the brain through the eye sockets. The technique was widely applied by Fiamberti in Italy and by Walter Freeman in the United States, with different tools. In 1914, he enrolled in the University of Turin's medical and surgical degree program. He enlisted at the start of the war and served almost continuously, also as an operative, until his discharge on May 24, 1920. In July 1918, he was awarded the Cross of Merit, and the following year, before being dismissed, he had the opportunity to attend the University of Turin, where he graduated on July 20, 1920. Following his natural inclination for the clinic, he was soon appointed effective assistant in the Turin university's human anatomy institute, headed by G. Levi, but he soon turned to the study of nervous and mental diseases and to a career as a doctor. In fact, he was admitted to E. Medea's neuropathology school at the clinical training institutes in Milan in 1921. At the beginning of his career Fiamberti took care both to acquire a good practical experience, and to complete his scientific training: in August 1921, in fact, he took service as an internal doctor in the provincial psychiatric hospital of Brescia and attended advanced courses, necessary, at that time, to allow a qualified access to medical activity in mental hospitals. Between 1921 and 1926, at the University of Turin, he obtained the diplomas of health officer and expert hygienist and attended the clinical and prophylactic course on tuberculosis directed by F. Micheli, followed in Milan the course of radiology in the school of F. Perussia and that of immunology and serodiagnostics at the Institute directed by S. Belfanti. Appointed, following a public competition, section doctor in the provincial psychiatric hospital of Brescia, he continued to serve in the following years, except for a short period between 1927 and 1928, when, after winning the competition, he held the position of head physician in the provincial psychiatric hospital of Verona.
In the meantime, he deepened the study of neuropsychiatric pathology: after having attended in Paris in 1926 the lessons of pathological anatomy of the nervous system held by I. Bertand at the clinic of Salpetrière and those of neuropsychiatry at the clinic of mental diseases and the encephalon directed by H. Claude, he studied the semeiotics of nervous diseases at the school of Medea and attended the clinics of nervous and mental diseases of Pavia and Milan directed respectively by O. Rossi and C. Besta. In addition, to enrich his experience in the field of neurology and neurosurgery, also attended the Civil Hospital of Brescia.
As of 1932 Fiamberti was director of the Psychiatric Hospital of Sondrio; between 1935 and 1937, he moved to Vercelli and was appointed director of the new psychiatric hospital, which was still under construction at the time. He drew up the regulations for the structure's future operation, in addition to overseeing its final completion. He moved to Varese in 1937 to take over the management of the new Bizzozzero Provincial Psychiatric Hospital. He was the director of that hospital until 1964, when he retired. He was given the title of director emeritus in 1970. After leaving the hospital's medical directorship, he was elected to the position of provincial councilor on the Italian Liberal Party's list in 1964, continuing to deal with psychiatric matters in a political capacity.
He died in Feltre (Belluno) on August 31, 1970, after being widowed by Alfonsina Mondino. He had designated the Municipality of Canneto Pavese and the Stradella Hospital as his main heirs, and he had left his book collection to the library of the Varese Neuropsychiatric Hospital.
Acetylcholinotherapy
Fiamberti's proposal for using acetylcholinic acid to treat schizophrenia was part of a larger framework of confident time adherence to shock therapies. Fiamberti had joined the debate after having had experiences with acetylcholine epileptic in nature, and had adhered to the recommendations of these biological therapy practices for psychosis.
Fiamberti considered the following facts: