Synopsis
A husband has his wife undergo a surgical treatment to cure her anxiety about crowds.
History
First publication: Fantastic Universe, February 1956
Review
This story speculates about the future of psychiatry as a science. It was a time when lobotomies were still in practice so it wasn’t strange to speculate about such surgeries becoming more advanced and more targeted. I doubt we would consider such technology ethical today. What if we could though? What if we could surgically change our behavior to our advantage? Could we force certain types of personalities to undergo the knife in order to eliminate illegal behaviors? And would people be recognizable after they go through it or would they be different people? A well-told story with excellent character and a lot of interesting food for thought. Recommended.
Videos
We have the story in these editions:
Fantastic Universe, February 1956, edited by Leo Margulies, magazine, King-Size Publications, 1956-02-00
