Electroshock Therapy in the 20th Century
“treatment of last resort” - Fink and Ottosson 2
In the 1930s Electroconvulsive therapy or ECT of discovered. This discovery was widely spread and used as a form of treatment for the mentally ill. (Fink and Ottosson 1-2) ECT was used to treat “depression, mania, psychosis, and suicide risk of schizophrenia and manic depressive illness” (Fink and Ottosson 1).
During the 20th century, ECT was not the only inhumane treatment being provided. Four other methods were being administered and researched, such as Malaria-Induced Fever, Insulin-induced coma and convulsions, Metrazol-induced convulsions, and electroconvulsive shock therapy (Sabbatini).
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The use of fevers with curing mental illness was widely spread in the 20th century. Even before the 20th century “Hippocrates was the first of note that malaria-induced convulsions in insane patients was able to cure them,” (Sabbatini). Although this may have cured patients for their psychosis it also left them with new illnesses such as, “mania, depression, paranoia, and violent behavior, including suicide, delusions, loss of memory, disorientation, and apathy” (Sabbatini).
Insulin Shock Therapy & Metrazol-induced convulsions
This treatment was an induced coma via insulin which was used to cure schizophrenia and other psychosis. However, the “improvements were many times temporary” (Sabbatini). Both treatments were uncontainable and therefore very dangerous (Sabbatini).
ECT
Ugo Cerletti discovered ECT in 1937. He was convinced that the shocks administered through the head were a controlled treatment (Sabbatini). Once his experiments on humans began “the improvement in most of the patients were startling” (Sabbatini). As well, the side effects of the treatment included memory loss of the treatment process and therefore the fear of the treatment was alleviated. ECT was used as a treatment for multiple mental illnesses including schizophrenia and depression (Sabbatini).
“An objective, clinical description of the procedure and its effects does not convey the emotional intensity of what actually happens when a patient climbs on the table…to receive ECT. They clamp the patient’s wrists and ankles, put graphite salve on his temples as a conducent, give him a piece of rubber hose to bite on, fasten the electrodes to his scalp, turn the dial and release the current that passes through two layers of skin and bone and enters his brain. After a minute or so the electricity leaves a sparky smell of burning, corrosion and battery acid.” (Meyers 549)
Side Effects:
ECT also had common side effects, such as, “death, fractures, panic, fear, memory loss, post seizure delirium, spontaneous seizures, and cardiovascular complications” (Meyers 548) As well, many people complained about lack of concentration and personality changes after treatment. Most of these treatments seemed to make the patient's symptoms worse rather than better (Meyers 548).
However, despite its supposed success rate, ECT had a lot of backlashes once put into effect. Many asylums were abusing the treatment as a way “to subdue and to control patients I psychiatric hospitals” (Sabbatini).
