In Cecil’s article about electroshock therapy, he mentions four different treatments that were introduced in the 30s. Electroshock, lobotomy, insulin coma therapy, and metrazol convulsion therapy.
I know what the first 2 are, but what did the second 2 involve. Their names are kinda creepy.
Insulin shock therapy involved injecting you with increasing amounts of insulin (same thing that diabetics take) until they hit the level sufficient to send you into insulin shock.
Insulin shock is that condition in which your blood sugar has all been snatched up by insulin. (Death can result from insulin shock and takes a few unlucky diabetics every year). If you don’t die from it, you just experience your mind turning to incoherent mush and then you sort of pass out and recover from it (when your blood sugar levels rise) not knowing who the hell you are or where you are for awhile.
This delightful experience was thought to improve the mental and emotional well-being of the unhappy confused people known as mental patients.
It fell out of vogue when brain electrocution caught on as the shock modality du jour.
I know less about metrazol but it probably was a similar mechanism.
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From <http://www.ect.org/resources/reign.html>:
Laszlo von Meduna had a different theory [than insulin shock therapy], one he developed during the early 1930’s while working at the Interacademic Brain Research Institute in Budapest. Meduna used a chemical (Metrazol), rather than the hormone insulin, to produce the convulsions. Like insulin, Metrazol was given by intravenous injection. Before the patient started to convulse, he or she experienced a horrible period of panic and impending doom, lasting up to a minute. It was not a popular treatment.