ELECTROSHOCK THERAPY FOR "GERIATRIC" PATIENTS

Electroshock therapy was developed in 1938, and became very popular with psychiatrists as a form of treatment for mentally ill patients in the 1940’s. This advertisement from the Northwestern National Life Insurance depicts electroshock therapy being used to treat “involuntary melancholia,” which was an illness affecting individuals over the age of 40. Involuntary melancholia is described as a type of nervous breakdown.

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           Psychiatrists would primarily diagnose post-menopausal women who had depressive symptoms and certain personality characteristics. After the 1980’s, involuntary melancholia was no longer classified as a specific disease, and became part of the class of major depressive disorders. William A. White characterized the symptoms of involuntary melancholia to include “certain head symptoms, such as pressure, pain, vertigo, together with anorexia, irritability, insomnia, mental insufficiency, a mild neurasthenic state and some emaciation.”

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Sources:

Ageing Shocker, by Sally Edelstein … 28 March 2014, Envisioning the American Dream, https://envisioningtheamericandream.com/2014/03/28/ageing-shocker/

Outlines of psychiatry, by William A. White ...  White, William A. (William Alanson), 1870-1937, pp. 163-164, quotation on pp. 164.

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