Word: metrazol
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Until 1934, medical science could do very little for schizophrenia. Then Dr. Manfred Sakel of Vienna, now in Manhattan, announced that since 1928 he had been shocking schizophrenics back to sanity with large injections of insulin. In 1935, Dr. Laszlo von Meduna of Budapest successfully shocked schizophrenics with metrazol, a camphor-like drug. Psychiatrists the world over hailed this revival of the old medieval technique, enthusiastically set to work to confirm the results of their European colleagues...
...Metrazol. Metrazol is a powerful stimulant of the centres which regulate blood pressure, heart action and respiration. Technique of metrazol injections is simple. A patient receives no food for four or five hours. Then about five cubic centimeters of the drug are injected into his veins. In about half-a-minute he coughs, casts terrified glances around the room, twitches violently, utters a hoarse wail, freezes into rigidity with his mouth wide open, arms and legs stiff as boards. Then he goes into convulsions. In one or two minutes the convulsion is over, and he gradually passes into a coma...
...horrible are the artificial epileptic fits forced by metrazol that practically no patients ever willingly submit. Common symptoms are a "flash of blinding light," an "aura of terror." One patient described the treatment as death "by the electric chair." Another asked piteously: "Doctor, is there any cure for this treatment...
Schizophrenia. Nourishment of the brain depends upon two important substances: sugar and oxygen. Modern treatment for schizophrenia is shockingly severe. When a schizophrenic is given insulin, his brain gets little sugar and shock ensues. Given metrazol, a drug with a camphor-like action, he goes into convulsions, stops breathing, shock ensues. Such shock blots out hallucinations, or delusions of persecution. Main trouble with insulin or metrazol treatment, however, is that the profundity and length of the shock cannot be easily controlled. Dr. Harold Edwin Himwich and associates of Albany Medical College reported in the Proceedings of the Society for Experimental...