Egas Moniz was the professional name of Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire, a scientist who made extensive contributions to the study of the human brain. A neurologist at the University of Lisbon, during the 1920s, Moniz developed cerebral angiography--an important breakthrough that is still used today to diagnose tumors and strokes. Moniz also pioneered surgical procedures to address psychiatric disorders; with the help of Almeida Lima, he developed the psychosurgical technique called frontal leucotomy, which severed the frontal lobes from the rest of the brain and reduced the patient's anxiety and other symptoms of neurosis. For his work on the frontal leucotomy, Moniz shared the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Walter Rudolf Hess.

Moniz was born Antonio Caetano de Abreu Freire in Avança, Portugal, on November 29, 1874. A member of an aristocratic family, his father was Fernando de Pina Rezende Abreu and his mother was...