Clinical Experience in Electrically Induced Convulsions

The Treatment of Mental Disorders by Electrically Induced Convulsions

Convulsion therapy in some form is now in common use in the majority of mental hospitals. A method of inducing convulsions by electrical stimulation of the brain was introduced into this country in 1939 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

This method commended itself readily because of the ease of operation, the freedom from special disadvantages inseparable from the use of a blood-borne drug, and the greater accuracy of dosage possible. Several papers describing this method and some early results have already appeared (7, 8, 9, 10).

Evaluation of a common method of convulsion therapy in Bantu schizophrenics

There seems little reason to believe that schizophrenia in the Bantu differs materially from the disease in other races, and no one thus far has produced conclusive evidence of fundamental differences between the symptoms of African and European schizophrenics. Nevertheless, certain diseases common in Europeans, are rare in Africans, others tend a different course, and the latter condition may perhaps apply to a somewhat variable disease like schizophrenia, especially considering the existence of certain factors which will be discussed.