Insulin Shock Therapy
Also known as insulin coma therapy, insulin shock therapy was a means of inducing a coma in a person suffering from mental disorders. It was developed in Austria in the 1920s and was used to place a patient, usually suffering from schizophrenia but also used for other mental disorders, in a series of comas over a span of several days. The therapy required massive doses of insulin. By the mid to late 1940s it was in regular use in most of the psychiatric hospitals and treatment facilities in the United States and in the United Kingdom.
The treatment was hard on the patient and on the facility providing it, as it required a number of medical professionals to monitor the comatose patient over its course. Small doses of insulin were gradually increased on a daily basis until the level of the coma reached that desired by the physician, at which point the dosages remained at the level indicated. The number of comas to be induced was likewise determined by the experience and skill of the physician. Usually the therapy was stopped after sixty comas, but there were instances of the therapy continuing for more than two years.
The point of the therapy was for the comatose patient to develop seizures, which in the psychiatric profession of the time were considered beneficial for the patient. Because the seizures could occur before entering the coma as well as when in the comatose state the patient required continuous monitoring to prevent injury caused by out of control limbs, thrashing around, or swallowing the tongue.
Among the psychiatric profession the efficacy of insulin shock therapy was debated. Its founder believed it to be more than 80% successful in the treatment of schizophrenia. Detractors believed that it did nothing other than possibly encourage remission of the illness in patients which would have gone into remission on their own. Some believed that it enhanced the efficiency of electroshock therapy when the two procedures were used interchangeably. By the early 1950s British doctors were arguing against its use. In the United States patient’s committed by legal action were often forced to undergo both insulin shock therapy and electroshock therapy.
Most patients selected for insulin shock therapy had a prognosis which indicated that their treatment was likely to be successful, allegedly required because of the intensive nature of the treatment and the demands it placed on the hospital staff. Hospitals simply couldn’t afford to tie up limited resources on patients who were unlikely to improve. This alone skewed the results. When another British study revealed that the same results obtained with insulin could be had by coma induced through barbiturates (without seizures) it placed insulin shock therapy in further doubt. By the 1970s it was no longer considered a useful treatment for mental disorders and its use has been discontinued in the United States.
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