John F. Kennedy's sister, Rosemary Kennedy, was ultimately found to have an IQ of only 60-70, something the family went to elaborate lengths to hide. Finally, at the age of 23 as she began to become "rebellious," with Joseph Kennedy Sr. worrying she might embarrass the family, Kennedy Sr. learned of a relatively new medical procedure that would supposedly calm his daughter. That medical procedure was a lobotomy. As one of the surgeons said, "We went through the top of the head... She had a mild tranquilizer. I made a surgical incision in the brain through the skull. It was near the front. It was on both sides. We just made a small incision..." At which point they began making blunt cuts of her brain with a butter-knife like object. They finally stopped destroying her brain when she became incoherent and no longer could respond to questions they asked her. From that point on, her mental capacity dropped to that of a 1-2 year old and she only regained the ability to walk much later in life, though with a limp. She never regained the ability to speak coherently and was also incontinent from that point on. She lived another 63 years, dying at the age of 86 in 2005.
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