The Strangest Psychiatric Treatments

Before the so-called “ethical code” was imposed on doctors towards their patients, it was possible to investigate in any way with them, even using really strange and invasive methods, so they could not be included within the title of “happy” . These are the strangest treatments in the world of psychiatry, which fortunately are no longer used:

1 – Insulin shock therapy: Austrian neurologist and psychiatrists Manfred Sakel committed great medical negligence in 1927 by applying a higher dose of insulin to a diabetic patient. This person also suffered from psychosis and went into a coma from this “slip”. When he came out of this state, the doctor found that he had notably improved his mental faculties. That is why he began to apply this “treatment” in other of his patients with schizophrenia. The injections were given from Monday to Saturday for two months. The dose was increased until the coma was brought on and then decreased. The treatment could last about two years on average and during that period the patient suffered from 50 induced comas. Success, according to Sakel, was between 80 and 90%. Nevertheless,it caused irreversible brain damage and the improvement was only temporary.

2 – Trepanation: it was a surgical procedure that was based on religious rituals and its objective was to “free the demons” that the person carried inside. These were supposedly responsible for epileptic seizures, mental illness, and even migraines. This technique was applied during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the survival rate was high and infections low. It was done among the wealthiest classes of the time. It could never be determined whether or not it was an effective treatment, but it did increase the blood volume of the brain, improving metabolism.

3 – Lobotomy: It is a small incision to separate the prefrontal area from the other parts of the brain. It was used in restless or violent people to “turn” them into docile. This technique was created in 1935 by Antonio Egas Moniz, a Portuguese-born psychiatrist and neurosurgeon. Its results were promising, which is why lobotomy began to be used in different medical centers to be able to stop psychosis and disorders that involve violent behaviors. However, the problem was that it began to be used in “rebellious” children and adolescents and also when patients did not even know that they were going to undergo this procedure. Among the effects of this practice are detachment, lack of initiative and decreased cognition, as if the will and emotions had been “ripped away”. In the 1940s, about 50,000 lobotomies were performed around the world, among the most “famous” cases are those of Rosemary Kennedy (the president’s sister), who was disabled; the violinist Josef Hassid, the painter Sigrid Hjertén and the sister of the writer Tennessee Williams, who died after the operation.

4 – Mesmerism: The name of this technique comes from its creator, the Austrian doctor Franz Anton Mesmer. He began using magnets to alleviate mental illness after seeing an extraordinary cure in a patient who had magnets applied all over her body. The idea came from the director of the Vienna Astronomical Observatory, Maximilian Hell, however, the hypothesis was developed by Mesmer. He assumed that people acted like magnets, with two poles and that diseases are an imbalance of magnetic influence. He simply placed magnets on the sides of the person so that the fluid passed through the “closed circuit” of the body. He also tried to transmit this fluid with other objects and routines, such as bathrooms, drinks, clothes, mirrors, beds, etc. Little by little Mesmer became a famous Viennese character because his method cured paralysis, gout, seizures, stomach cramps, ringing in the ears, menstrual problems, liver pain, insomnia and visual difficulties. However, the idea that everything was due to the suggestion of the patient became more established and the technique was forgotten, although it gave rise to hypnosis.