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The metal clamp that sent a current and shattered patients' bones
In 1938 a Rome psychiatrist sent current through a human brain with a metal clamp and wondered what it truly did. How did that expose them?
The metal clamp that sent a current and shattered patients' bones
In this episode, we follow the origin story of a medical device born from a slaughterhouse observation and its rapid adoption in psychiatry. The episode traces the early experiments, the classroom and ward conditions that shaped practice, and asks what the electric current actually did inside the brain.
Person: Ugo Cerletti
Date: April 11, 1938
Location: Rome
Topic: electroconvulsive…
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