Early Use of the Name "ECT"- Sacklers in 1949
"Classics in ECT" brings you this study from Creedmore State Hospital in 1949:
Nonconvulsive biochemotherapy with histamine and electric convulsive therapy; a comparative study on hospitalized psychotics with a control ECT series.
J Nerv Ment Dis. 1949 Sep;110(3):185-97. doi: 10.1097/00005053-194911030-00001. PMID: 18138865The pdf is here.I originally choose this article as the earliest in PubMed to use the name, "ECT," although it also uses "electric [sic] convulsive therapy." The very first PubMed "ECT" citation is from 1947, but it is written "E.C.T." and also reports a complication, so we prefer this one.Nomenclature aside, this turns out to be an interesting read, with what would now be considered a somewhat bizarre study comparing histamine therapy with ECT. Among the interesting details are the inclusion of a couple of patients with postpartum psychosis and the observation that longer duration of illness is associated with poorer outcome.Worth a full read only for history buffs (about 10 minutes).Does anyone know anything about the three Drs. Sackler?
I was afraid it would turn out to be those Sacklers…
ReplyDeleteThe below historical comment is from Dr. Max Fink who nicely elucidates the timeline:
Sacklers
The Sackler story is an American tragedy. Their first effort at biological research was at Creedmoor State Hospital in Queens, Long Island. Immediately post-war, before the first new psychotropiocs, they faced hundreds of severely ill, many who had been housed for decades. The main treatments that were effective were ECT and insulin coma. They sought to understand ICT by studying sugar metabolism and then asked whether histamine could replace insulin.
They edited a book of recollections by the leading biological psychiatrists -- Great Physiodynamic Therapies in Psychiatry (Hoeber, 1956)-- that I often gave to my research fellows.
Perhaps disappointments in working in a State Hospital, with the public attitudes against the “crazies”, lack of support for their research, Mortimer and Raymond left first and Arthur soon thereafter.
Arthur Sackler connected with publicists, developed a freely distributed news journal titled Medical Tribune, filled with interesting stories with pharma advertising. I found copies in my father's office in 1960s (a GP graduate of University of Vienna) piled next to copies of JAMA.
I do not know why the brothers left Creedmoor but with my experiences with the St Louis State Hospital in 1962-66, with local and state politics poisoning relationships with the University, I can well understand the frustrations of a physician in the State systems.
Arthur Sackler went on to untold wealth that he shared with museums, with universities, establishing the Medical School in Tel Aviv, and much more. He financed the purchase of a pharmaceutical house selling nostrums that became Purdue Frederick. His brothers intelligently led the company to develop effective medications, including a potent opioid that was so effective that it challenged the abuse of morphine, heroin, and dilaudid.
Max Fink, MD