jan 1, 1927 - Insulin Shock Therapy

Description:

Insulin shock therapy was introduced as a way to treat schizophrenia. Patients were injected with increasingly larger doses of insulin causing them to fall into a 1-4 hour coma, then revived with glucose and repeated. The luckier patients only had some weight gain but others were left with lasting brain damage or a permanent coma. We have since discovered that the treatment had no effect on schizophrenia and instead only succeeded in traumatizing patients. At the time, doctors ignored the lack of evidence that this type of therapy was helping and showed that they weren't morally opposed to experimenting on individuals that couldn't fully give their consent. Mentally ill individuals were considered less than human and not given near as many basic rights as those who were neurotypical.

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