Electroshock Therapy in Depressive States

SINCE its introduction by Cerletti and Bini1 in 1938, electroshock therapy has become an accepted therapeutic procedure and has replaced metrazol as the most effective therapeutic convulsive agent. It has been found most useful in depressive states of a manic depressive nature, involutional depressions and involutional paranoid conditions and in depressions of later life and also as an adjunct in the treatment of psychoneuroses with depressive coloring. It has replaced insulin in the treatment of some early cases of schizophrenia, and has been used experimentally in a large variety of neuropsychiatric conditions including general paresis,2 Parkinson's disease,3 tics,3 stammering,4 drug . . .