Special review article The origins of electroconvulsive therapy: Prof. Bini's first report on ECT Gianni L. Faedda a, ⁎, Ina Becker a,b , Argelinda Baroni a,c , Leonardo Tondo d,e , Ellen Aspland a , Athanasios Koukopoulos f a Mood Disorders Center ‘Lucio Bini’, New York, NY, United States b Department of Psychiatry Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, NY, United States c Westchester Medical College, Valhalla, NY, United States d Bipolar and Psychotic Disorders Program, Harvard Medical School-McLean Hospital, Belmont, MA, United States e Centro Lucio Bini and Department of Psychology, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Italy f Centro Lucio Bini, Rome, Italy article info abstract Article history: Received 4 June 2008 Accepted 26 January 2009 Available online 5 March 2009 In August 1939, at the 3rd International Neurological Congress in Copenhagen, Professor Lucio Bini reported on the first use of electricity to induce a seizure for therapeutic purposes in psychotic patients. At that time, the discovery of ECT amounted to a therapeutic revolution, helping millions of mentally ill patients and furthering the scientific understanding of several disorders. Although electricity had been used to treat several physical ailments and mental disorders, electricity, rather than the convulsive crisis, was considered therapeutic. In modern times von Meduna was the first to clearly recognize the therapeutic value of ‘complete’ seizures, but it was thanks to Cerletti's dedication to biological research and Bini's contribution that ECT became one of the most effective and safe treatments available. ECT remains a highly effective and safe treatment option and thousands of papers have been published on ECT since the original report by Bini. To celebrate this anniversary, we translated Prof. Bini's original report as an abstract presented in Copenhagen in 1939. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Affective disorder Convulsive Depression ECT Treatment Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Role of funding source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Conflicts of interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Acknowledgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Introduction Following the titanic efforts of Emil Kraepelin (Trede et al., 2005) and many other European psychiatrists to clarify the nosology of mental illness, a rigorous application of scientific methods to neurology and psychiatry began to produce results (Passione, 2004). In 1905 Alois Alzheimer, a student of Kraepelin, had described the first case of dementia with specific neuropatho- logic findings, stimulating great interest in neuro-pathology as a means to cure various conditions. Cerletti’s suspicion that Progressive Paralysis had an infectious etiology (Cerletti,1911; Passione, 2004) was confirmed by Noguchi in 1913. In 1917 Julius Wagner von Jauregg began experimenting with malaria-therapy for tertiary syphilis and in 1927 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine (Wagner-Jauregg,1965). Journal of Affective Disorders 120 (2010) 12–15 ⁎ Corresponding author. 245 East 50th Street, Suite 2A, New York, NY 10022- 7752, United States. Tel.: +1 212 644 3111; fax: +1 212 644 3119. E-mail addresses: moodcenter@gmail.com, gianna.faedda@moodcenter.org (G.L. Faedda). 0165-0327/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2009.01.023 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Affective Disorders journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jad