One Hundred Depressive Psychoses Treated with Electrically Induced Convulsions

Abstract

Since the introduction of the electrically induced convulsion by Cerletti and Bini the history of this procedure has become too well known to record again; but certain clinical data have come to light that are worth noting, of which the most important is the now recognized fact that this treatment is of more value in the affective psychoses than in schizophrenia, for which it was early introduced. Most writers, e.g., Elfield, Metcalfe and Paul, are agreed upon this, and it would therefore seem worth while to examine the results of this therapy in one hundred such cases. Depressions are so much commoner than manias that it would take a long time to collect a sufficient number of the latter for reliable conclusions to be drawn. These remarks are thus confined to the depressive states.