YOU’VE HAD AN ECT SCIENCE LESSON.
NOW FOR A HISTORY LESSON.
NOW FOR A HISTORY LESSON.
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WORLD WAR I—Psychiatrists in Germany applied a primitive shock machine to shellshocked soldiers. Their goal? To make soldiers more terrified of a hospital than fighting on the front lines.
1920s—Austrian psychiatrist Manfred Sakel sought to drive out “bad brain cells” by injecting his patients with insulin. Despite severe convulsions and a five percent death rate, Sakel defended his “treatment” by pointing to the resulting childlike state of his patients. Hospital shock wards and insulin therapy became big business.
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1930s—Hungarian neuropsychiatrist Ladislas Meduna believed he could drive out mental illness by inducing brain-damaging seizures with a drug called Metrazol. A psychiatrist could chemically shock 50 patients into a docile state in one morning, making the procedure extremely lucrative. This financial success sparked an even more profitable method of inducing brain-damaging convulsions—electric shock.
WATCH THIS DOCUMENTARY.
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