This article explores the history of general paralysis and malaria fever therapy in Denmark. I argue that the small size of the country gave Danish psychiatrists excellent opportunities for performing statistical studies of general paralysis in the 19th century. In the early 1920s malaria fever therapy was introduced in Danish mental hospitals and raised hopes of a cure for paralytics. Malaria fever therapy became popular among Danish psychiatrists, but the new therapy also raised ethical questions and led to the first regulations concerning informed consent in the history of Danish psychiatry.
In the last decade, a new history of shock therapy in psychiatry has emerged. Electroshock or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in particular has attracted the attention of the scholars German Berrios, Roberta Passioni and Max Fink, who have each examined the scientific origins of the therapy.1 Timothy W Kneeland and Carol A B Warren have explored its history in the United States, and Jonathan Sadowsky has analysed its reception by American psychoanalysts in the twentieth century.2 Most recently, the extensive monograph Shock therapy by Edward Shorter and David Healy has provided new insights into the invention of ECT in Italy and its use in the United States and in several other countries.3 Specialized studies of the portrayal of ECT in films, popular magazines, and of patient consent to the therapy in Britain have also been published. 4 The former image of ECT as a brutal and brain-disabling treatment has been challenged by this new literature. Instead, the recent studies have focused on the life-saving results of shock therapy and its positive effect on depression, characterizing ECT as the "penicillin of psychiatry".
5The contemporary rise of electroconvulsive therapy has undoubtedly influenced its historiography. ECT is thus undergoing a comeback, and the historical literature on the treatment has been accompanied by a series of books advocating its benefits in psychiatry today.6 However, criticism of shock therapy has not ceased, and unfavourable studies of
In recent years, the history of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) has received renewed attention from historical researchers, who have published thorough monographs and articles on the subject of ECT. In these studies, however, one of the important events in the history of ECT has been overlooked: the lectures by Cerletti and Bini at the Third International Neurological Congress in Copenhagen. The lectures at the congress were the first presentation of ECT before a large international audience and became the impetus to the first Danish ECT trials. The first part of this article outlines the events of the neurological congress in 1939 and provides a translation of the paper presented by Bini at the congress. In the last part of the article, the history of ECT in Denmark is summarized.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.