Electroshock

Photos from the controversial treatment of psychiatric patients from the 50s have been made public for the first time.

What procedures did the patients committed to the psych ward at Gaustad (Oslo Norway) undergo? Some answers can be found in the recently discovered photo-archives of one late Carl Wilhelm Sem-Jacobsen.

Norwegian resistance member, physician and «America/Norway friend" Sem-Jacobsen arrived at Gaustad in '56. Prior to his arrival, the hospital had been drilling holes into patients skulls for a couple of decades... Sem-Jacobsen had some new ideas.

The so called "EKG-laboratory" initiated by the head physician (sic) who wasn't even a surgeon, was paid for by the Ford Foundation, and included at least 23 different contracts with the U.S. Department of Defence. Here he made use of electrodes, electrical jolts, and conducted research far from the directions made by Norwegian health authorities.

The doctor's research on human stressreactions was an area of much interest to his friends in the U.S. Department of Defence, something his patients nor their relatives knew nothing about.

By Sigurd S. Rønningen
Photo Norsk Teknisk Museum

From Dagens Næringsliv