Manfred Sakel

Manfred Joshua Sakel (1900-1957) was an Austrian-American neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who developed insulin shock therapy in 1927, a treatment that induced comas and convulsions with insulin to treat schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. Sakel reported very high improvement rates, but later research found his results were biased and the therapy carried serious risks. Despite this, insulin shock therapy was widely adopted in mental institutions before being phased out in the 1940s and 1950s as electroconvulsive therapy and neuroleptic drugs became available.