© SCIENCE SOURCE/PHOTO RESEARCHERS
Historically, insulin-shock therapy, also known as insulin coma therapy (ICT), was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were injected daily for several weeks or even months with a large dose of insulin in order to induce a coma. After about an hour in the coma, the treatment was ended by the administration of glucose. Originally introduced in 1933 by Austrian-American psychiatrist Manfred Sakel, the method was soon adopted by other psychiatrists in the United States and Europe. ICT was used extensively in the 1940s and ’50s to mitigate psychotic and affective symptoms, primarily in patients with schizophrenia. But the induced hypoglycemia, or pathologically low blood-glucose level, that resulted from ICT made patients extremely restless, sweaty, and, after long courses of treatment, even grossly ...
