Manuel Parra Garrido

Dr. Manuel Parra Garrido
Use of Electricity and Metals for treating Mental Disease before Introduction of Electroconvulsive Therapy

(Dr. Parra Garrido conducted research at the Bakken during May, 2003)

Electricity has been a therapeutic tool in treating mental diseases early before the introduction of Electroconvulsive Therapy; this latter has been extensively used and new techniques improve its use, but few is known today about a long history of trials with different sources of electricity, as early as in the XVIIIth century. Furthermore, new developments in Electrotherapeutics, as Vagal Nerve Stimulation tried in mood and anxiety disorders, appear unconnected with developments in Faradization and Galvanization during XIXth century.

The use of electricity and the development of electrical machines address some interesting points in the History of Psychiatry:

Apparatus give to physicians an objective tool for treating diseases where nothing tangible can be demonstrated, but a strange behavior or a burst of emotions; treatment can be dosed, answer can be measured, outcome can be prognosed. Portable electrical machines would be very important for credibility of physicians facing patients with emotional symptoms.
Theories about electricity in living beings, from animal electricity to movement of ions, were continuously providing a material background for something immaterial as soul, emotions, passions. Although theories changed, they gave to Electrotherapists the power of knowing what was being treated.
Changes in theory have been the rule in the intent to know the organic basis of mental symptoms and diseases; this fact address to the empirical approach to therapy as the prevalent in Psychiatry; no matter the change in theory, electricity continued to be tried in many cases explicitly not discussing mechanisms of action and only emphasizing methods and outcomes.
Electricity almost reached the status of panacea in Medicine; this anecdotal fact allowed to mental diseases to share a common place with physical diseases, giving to Psychiatry an opportunity for a development that asylums approach would counterbalance.
In the field of Mental Diseases, electrical treatments were mainly used in emotional disorders for outpatient management. Few reports are available about trials in asylums for long stage inpatients, with severe diseases. Was this a matter of access to an expensive technology or was it related to success of treatments?

My research is aimed to answer the following questions:

Which kinds of Electricity were tried in mental disease?
In which nosological entities was Electricity successfully used, and in which its use was discouraged?
What technological barriers for using it could be detected, and how were they overcome?
What can be said about the extent of its use in mental diseases?
Was it applied in a random way, or was it standardized?
Was Electricity used in mental diseases over an empirical basis, or was it according to theories about brain and central nervous system physiology in each period?
What was the status of use of Metals in the therapeutic armamentarium for mental diseases?

Products:

1.- Electrotherapy and Metallotherapy in Hysteria , Lecture to be given on September 6 in the Seminar “Psychopathology of Hysteria: a Journey in the Time”, Department of Psychiatry , Catholic University of Chile.

2.- Use of Electricity and Metals for treating Mental Disease before Introduction of Electro-convulsive Therapy, Thesis (in preparation) to be submitted to Department of Psychiatry, University of Santiago of Chile , 2003.

Research Visit to the Bakken:

This Visit was organized from May 12 th to 23 rd of 2003 with the following objectives:

• To collect information from primary sources about electric and metallic treatments for Neurasthenia and Hysteria.

• To see and to understand the functioning of electrical machines and metallic therapeutic devices.

• To obtain pictures of electrical machines and printed copies of engravings of procedures and machines for electrical treatments.

• To complete information about use of Electricity in Melancholia and other mental diseases.

Consulting electronic catalogue was very useful to plan my visit; during my stage, the manual catalogue and the help of the Librarian were the ideal complement to facilitate the search of relevant information. The volume of available information exceeded the possibilities for a two weeks visit, and it was necessary to exclude some authors from my focus; I couldn’t explore the works of Mary Putnam Jacobi as in depth as I wished.

The possibility of visiting the collection of machines is a complement for a better understanding of texts. In this sense, the help of the Curator of Collection is key to know machines and devices, and to obtain pictures.