Electric Shock Therapy

Press, Volume C, Issue 29539, 14 June 1961, Page 7

Electric Shock Therapy

Sir.—The comments of Dr. Savage on electro-convulsive therapy (“The Press," June 3» are so laudatory of this procedure that one is con- ' strained to ask him whether it is not generally held by the highest authorities in the psychiatric world that elec-tro-convulsive' therapy is purely empirical, that it has no discernible relation to the aetiology of any mental disorder, that it never touches the matrix of a psychosis or the source of a I neurosis and that, though it ; sometimes ameliorates symp- ■ toms, it does so at the risk of impairment of the memory and other facets of the intellect. This is certainly held by many of these author!- ; ties.—Yours, etc.. INTERESTED. | June 3. 1961[The Senior Medical Officer at Sunnyside Hospital (Dr. P. P. E. Savage) said: ‘Psychiatric authorities may not know the exact basis of electrical treatment, nor may they yet fully know the cause of many mental illnesses; but most reliable psychiatric authorities know of’ the efficacy of the treatment. judging by the way they recommend it in the type of case in which they know it will do good, and Ifcese are many. The temporary memory impairment mentioned is not a gross feature and may even be helpful in some cases: in any case, memory usually returns over a period. There are often reasons other than the electrical treatment for patients to have memory loss in mental illness. The intellect is not affected permanently, It is interesting to note that penicillin cured many people before its formula was known—empirical use, surely, and in the present state of knowledge cessa-

r bon of electrical treatment • would be like reverting from 5 penicillin to pouttiees.”! s —~