Chapter 1. Early Treatment of Mental Disorders

Short Description

During the first half of the twentieth century, mental hospitals used a variety of medical procedures to treat severe mental disorders. These therapies were often crude, ineffective, and often unintentionally cruel.

Long Description

During the first half of the twentieth century, mental hospitals used a variety of medical procedures to treat severe mental disorders. These therapies were often crude, ineffective, and often unintentionally cruel.

In hydrotherapy, patients were sprayed with water in order to stimulate them. Another therapy, the wet-pack, involved wrapping patients in wet sheets. In the continuous bath, water was kept at 98 degrees to sedate patients. Hot boxes and hot lamps were also used in the effort to help patients to relax.

Insulin therapy, a predecessor of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), was less effective as well as more dangerous than ECT. Used primarily in the treatment of schizophrenia, insulin injections caused blood sugar to drop, the patient to slip into a coma and, most importantly, experience a convulsive reaction. It also produced wet shock, marked by excessive sweating and drooling. Dry shock, yet another reaction to insulin therapy, involved a full brain seizure. Therapists administered glucose to bring patients out of the coma. Prior to the use of ECT, another therapy utilized injections of metrasol to produce grand mal type seizure.

The lobotomy was among the most notorious of early procedures used to treat mental disorders. Surgeons severed the connections between the cortex of the frontal lobes and the lower centers of the brain.

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