GenZedong

Henry Maudsley, founder of British psychiatry:"[t]he sooner [the masturbator] sinks to his degraded rest, the better for the world which is well rid of him."

From the earliest experimentations with ECT, it appears that psychiatry was quite aware that electroshock resulted in brain trauma, generally feeling that this was no bad thing. ECT-inflicted patients were observed as experiencing amnesia, being disorientated, lethargic, and apathetic; some noted that their whole intellect was lowered by the "treatment" (Whitaker 2010b: 98). This was all seen as helpful for the patient, for as one physician (cited in Whitaker 2010b: 99) noted, "the greater the damage [to the brain], the more likely the remission of psychotic symptoms."

[…]

Freeman eventually became frustrated with the amount of time the Moniz-designed brain-drilling operations took and his reliance on an assistant to anesthetise the patient. Instead he devised a simpler, cheaper and less time-consuming operation which he boasted could be done in 20 minutes (Whitaker 2010b : 133). Th e procedure required no anaes- thetic—instead he used three successive shocks of ECT to pacify the patient—and could be administered by any psychiatrist after only a few hours of training. Freeman’s infamous “transorbital lobotomy” innova- tion has been described by Whitaker ( 2010b : 133) as follows:

“Freeman attacked the frontal lobes through the eye sockets. He would use an ice pick to poke a hole in the bony orbit above each eye and then insert it seven centimeters deep into the brain. At that point, he would move behind the patient’s head and pull up on the ice pick to destroy the frontal- lobe nerve fibers.”

Freeman (cited in Whitaker 2010b : 133) even felt it unnecessary to ster- ilise the ice pick and thereby “waste time with that ‘germ crap.’” Consequently, Burstow ( 2015 : 53) notes that Freeman’s innovation further increased medical interest in the procedure, due to its ability to maximise “doctor’s profi ts, [reduce] hospital expenses, and dramatically [increase] the number ‘served.’” Th anks to the claims of high “curability” attributed to the transorbital lobotomy by the media and medical jour- nals at the time, over 20,000 social deviants in America alone were lobot- omised in the 1950s (Whitaker 2010b : 132). Research articles followed the lobotomists’ claims in suggesting that the procedure was a painless, minor, low-risk operation which brought about signifi cant improvement in the patient’s behaviour. Over time, however, it became clear that what this implied was that the lobotomy made the inmate more manageable for hospital staff .

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Contrary to psychiatric mythology, the introduction of chlorpromazine to the mental health system happened by accident rather than design, the term “antipsychotic” being later added by pharmaceutical companies to more eff ectively market the drug to institutional psychiatry and state authorities. Hypothesised as a benefi cial anaesthetic for major operations, the drug was originally used by Henri Laborit, a French naval surgeon, for its antihistaminic properties in 1949. Th e surgeon (cited in Whitaker 2010a : 48) noted that the results of the drug appeared positive in that the patient “felt no pain, no anxiety, and often did not remember his opera- tion.” Th us, Laborit felt chlorpromazine off ered a potential improvement on barbiturates and morphine, popularly used as pre-operation anaes- thetics at the time. At a medical conference in 1951, he further stated that the drug appeared to produce “a veritable medicinal lobotomy,” and for this reason might also be of use to psychiatry (Laborit, cited in Whitaker 2010a : 49). Th e following year, Jean Delay and Pierre Deniker, two prominent French psychiatrists, put the drug to the test on patients they had labelled as “psychotic” at St. Anne’s Hospital in Paris (Whitaker 2010a : 49–50). Th e fi rst patient to be given the drug was a 57-year-old male labourer who had been admitted for “making improvised political speeches in cafes, becoming involved in fi ghts with strangers, and for … walking around the street with a pot of fl owers on his head preaching his love of liberty” (Delay, cited in Shorter 1997 : 250). After three weeks of chlorpromazine the psychiatrists discharged the patient, observing a new calmness within him. Th e authorities were impressed with the results of the drug on the asylum population; while still conscious and responsive to the ward staff , the inmates were much more subdued and quiet. As with ECT and pre-frontal lobotomy, the drug produced a more manageable and compliant patient. Th e psychiatrists wrote triumphantly of the chlor- promazine-drugged patient in 1952 that “he rarely takes the initiative of asking a question” and, further, “does not express his preoccupations, desires, or preference” (Delay and Deniker, cited in Whitaker 2010a : 50).

As a quick and cheap substitute for lobotomy, the drug quickly became popular across asylums in Europe. Hans Lehmann, the physician who is often cited as responsible for the introduction of chlorpromazine to North America, admitted he was intrigued by the claim of the research papers and drugs marketing literature that the drug acted “like a chemical lobotomy” (Shorter 1997 : 252). After the implementation of the drug regimen at his Verdun Hospital in Montreal, Lehmann felt chlorproma- zine achieved roughly the same results as insulin treatment and ECT but was an improvement on psychosurgery (of which he was an avid supporter) (Moncrieff 2009 : 45). Th e drug, announced Lehmann, was most useful in managing the psychiatric patient in that it produced an “emotional indifference” in the inmate (cited in Breggin 1991 : 55). As Breggin ( 1991 : 55) notes, chlorpromazine was not conceptualised by the profession and business promoters as a cure for mental illness or even an alleviator of symptoms, but rather a pacifi er of one’s character. “We have to remember,” stated the psychiatrist E. H. Parsons (cited in Whitaker 2010a : 50–51) in 1955, “that we are not treating diseases with this drug … We are using a neuropharmacologic agent to produce a specific effect.

— the book of the post title, Psychiatric hegemony by Bruce MZ Cohen