Electroconvulsive therapy in continental Western Europe: A literature review

Both convulsive therapy and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are European achievements. At the Budapest-Lipotmezö State Hospital (Hungary), on January 23, 1934, Ladislas Meduna decided to produce “epileptic attacks” by means of an intramuscular injection of camphor in oil to treat a man in catatonic stupor (Fink, 1984, 2001). Although within Hungary Meduna's work was criticized, psychiatrists from all over Europe visited him and adopted his treatment at a number of centers in Europe (Fink, 1984). In April 1938, at the Clinic for Mental and Nervous Diseases in Rome, Cerletti and Bini went ahead with the first ECT treatment in humans (Accornero, 1988; Kalinowsky, 1986; Shorter and Healy, 2007). By 1940, at least 32 treatment units had been established in Italy (Shorter and Healy, 2007). Outside Italy, Switzerland was the first country in which ECT visibly flourished for the international community. From there, ECT spread to the rest of continental Western Europe, in large part thanks to the efforts of Lothar Kalinowski (Shorter and Healy, 2007). In both the United Kingdom and Scandinavia, ECT has been used frequently throughout its history, whereas in other European countries the use of ECT has been highly variable. Few data on the use of ECT in other European countries are available, however. Official central data collection is lacking in most countries, and published data are provided in different formats, making it difficult to compare practice between countries.