ABSTRACT
As knowledge of electricity grew in modern Western societies, an ambivalent fascination developed. A mysterious force with unknown and seemingly limitless potential, some thought it the source or essence of life itself. By that measure, it was also something to be feared. Witness the birth of such a monster:
It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet . . . I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. 1
A spark, a convulsion, a lifeless form brought to life: although the doctor here, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, is trying to bring to life matter that is literally dead, rather than suffering the fi gurative death of severe mental illness, the passage is eerily similar to ECT in certain respects.
