Electroconvulsive Therapy Applications on Children in the 1940s: The Italian Case

Abstract

The existence of pediatric applications of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in the 1940s in Italy has been neglected by international literature. However, 2 case reports by Ferdinando Accornero and Mario Anderson, both assistants of Ugo Cerletti at the Sapienza Clinic for Nervous and Mental Diseases, should be brought to the attention of historians of ECT. The work presented therein began in Rome in September 1940, approximately at the same time of the first reported ECT administration on a child in Bristol, United Kingdom. The 2 reports described applications on 19 children and adolescents during 3 different sessions (1940-1941, 1944-1947, and 1947-1949), with a 3-year-long interruption due to the circumstances of World War II. Unfortunately, this research appeared belatedly in 2 articles from 1948 and 1950, respectively, in an Italian journal with limited distribution, when more extensive research contributions on pediatric ECT had already received international exposure. The Italian reports may cast light on the progress made by the early generation of ECT researchers in the 1940s toward the refinement of ECT techniques and the subsequent identification of diagnostic indicators for ECT among children.