a roll of chart paper waited for needle-like pens to inscribe incomprehensible lines: For what purpose? For what science? Were they there to validate that electro shock destroys the electrical circuits of a healthy body and the spirit that is really a man or woman?
The nurse connected the electrodes to various points of the woman's body to monitor both brain and heart activity.
Up to this point no one spoke. No order had been given, no questions asked. The chief inquisitor had brought the heretic to the stake; her satanic possession would be purged. He stood to one side, empty of emotion, empty of humanity, as empty as the machines of his abysmal trade.
| As to the use of confessions, Father Spee remarks... "The result is the same whether she [the accused] confesses or not. If she confesses, her guilt is clear; she is executed. All recantation is in vain. If she does not confess, the torture is repeated - twice, thrice, four times... She can never clear herself. The investigating body would feel disgraced if it acquitted a woman; once arrested and in chains she has to be guilty, by fair means or foul.” —1631 Father Friederich Von Spee Cautio Criminalis (Precautions for prosecutors) The Inquisition |
You see? How simple. She has to be mad. Her psychiatric inquisitor can never admit that she might be sane…not ever.
The attendant stepped back from the table. The nurse set up an intravenous solution. Finally, something in the environment offered sufficient resistance to provoke a human response on her features. She frowned and muttered something unintelligible, and then quite clearly, "The old bag hasn't any veins." At this point she turned to the high priest.
"Does she get pentothal?" she asked.
He seemed to be considering something, some significant technical point. He didn't look at the patient's chart; he just stared at her with narrow, vulpine eyes.
"No, I don't think so," he said. "We'll do an unmodified bilateral treatment".
Modified ECT is effected by first rendering the patient unconscious and then administering a paralytic drug, such as succinycholine in conjunction with Pentothal sodium. It is also necessary to provide mechanical means for breathing, as with the onset of these drugs, the patient is unable to breath unassisted. Unmodified treatment is done without any of these so-called precautions.
The nurse's head came up a fraction. She hesitated for less than a heart beat.
"This should be interesting," she murmured.
She pushed the mechanical breathing aid away from the table, and then inserted a mouth gag of rubber covered with gauze between the woman's teeth to prevent her from biting through her tongue or shattering her teeth.
On another stand near the head of the table sat another machine. Unlike the EEG, it only had two cables, each tipped with a silver electrode. The old-fashioned case was black with a crackle finish. On the top were four or five knobs and dials. It wasn't very complex. Two wires came from the device, each tipped with a small button electrode.
The nurse opened a small jar of conductive gel especially impregnated with tiny bits of graphite to make it a better conductor of electricity. She applied it first to the woman's temples, then to the electrodes.
| “...Such ECT instruments usually contain nothing but a simple transformer that steps up the voltage from the wall outlet from 110 volts to about 150 volts. The machine may or may not have an automatic timing device to limit the duration of the shock. The current that passes through the head (between the electrodes) is limited mainly by the electrical resistance of the head. The total power drawn is about 60 watts - enough to light a conventional light bulb. The result is not very different from what would be accomplished by plugging two pieces of metal into a wall outlet and placing their other ends on the temples—except the voltage from the wall outlet is a little lower..." —Peter Sterling, Ph.D., Professor (Neurobiology) |
Finally the conductor of this rite macabre stepped forward to a point just behind the black machine and made a few adjustments.
"We'll try one hundred and fifty volts, at a half second."
The Psychiatrist paused; a minute change passed over his face. Was it excitement? Was it anticipation? Was it a re-enactment of some medieval memory? Did he long for the robes of his former office?
| “What counts alone with shock therapists is the "adjustment" their fearful apparatus and its brain-searing explosion produces. In effect there is little difference between the white-coated psychiatric shock specialist and his primitive forebear, the mud-daubed witch doctor, who also treated diseases of the mind by scaring out, routing out, and exorcising by dire agony and inhuman ordeal the demons or devils - today disguised by scientific-sounding names - which they believed caused patients to behave in such deplorable, tactless, or irritating ways. In the name of this adjustment, and in order to bring about the desired quiet and submissiveness, the patient is put through a crucifixion of such torment as one would wish to spare the lowliest animal.” —Robert Linder Ph.D. The Revolutionist's Handbook |
He looked at the tableau for a moment, and pressed the button marked 'activate'.
How much imagination would it take to see an arm in clerical black thrust the torch into a pile of wood beneath a heretic's feet?
The older machine didn't have controls to set the duration automatically so the high priest had to 'estimate' a half second. It was in fact much closer to two seconds.
Despite the straps, despite the strength of the attendant, the woman's body arched upward with incredible violence to form an inverse bow. For a few seconds her body remained in this position, with only her shoulders, feet and clenched hands touching the table. She was in the classic position of tonic stiffening, common during the beginning of a grand mal epileptic seizure.
A muffled snap came from the area of her back.
"Shit," the attendant muttered. He knew. He'd heard it before: Compression fracture of the spine in the middorsal region, somewhere between the forth and eight dorsal vertebrae.
| “Such fractures are most frequently asymptomatic and of little clinical significance. Rarely, but more serious, fractures of the humerous or femur occur. Actually, electroshock therapy is a fairly safe procedure...” —Psychiatric Nursing Multheny and Topalis 4th Ed. ] |
Her body shook and jerked in a violent series of clonic spasms, a terrible parody of St. Vitus Dance. Mercifully, the woman sank into unconsciousness after the application of the current.
But, in that moment before unconsciousness, a white-hot spear of pain plunged through her temples: Terrible, bright explosion, darkness, and then silence.
She exhibited the outward manifestations of a typical, generalized grand mal epileptic seizure. But she didn’t have epilepsy! It directly followed the tonic/clonic convulsions associated with epilepsy and other forms of brain damage.
Immediately after the application of current to her temples, blanching became noticeable, followed by frothing at the mouth. During and after the 'treatment' the body snorted and made other revolting sounds associated with a respiratory system out of control. These outward manifestations of sadistic torture echoed the destruction in the brain and were no less brutal and loathsome.
| “Because of the lower impedance of the blood it is probably the vascular tree (the blood circulatory system), which bears the brunt of the current as it passes through the head. Grossly blanching is apparent with the initial spasm, and is followed by varying degrees of vasoparalysis, stasis, subarachnoid and intracerebral hemorrhage (Sludging of blood into and over the brain). In fact, ten percent of all ECT deaths are directly due to intracerebral damage... "All parts of the brain were vulnerable - the cerebral hemispheres, the cerebellum, third ventricle and hypothalmus. " Shock Treatment Is Not Good For Your Brain —John Frieberg MD] |
The doctor turned to his assistants. He sent one back to ward duties then instructed the nurse and the other