Prolonged Sleep Treatment in Mental Disorders (Some New Psychopharmacological Considerations)

Abstract

Sleep as a method of controlling mental derangements dates to antiquity. According to Celsus sleep restores mental equilibrium: “but certainly for all so affected sleep is both difficult and especially necessary; for under it many get well …” (13). Griesinger in 1861 was the first to use chloroform as a sleep-inducing agent in mania and melancholia (21). The advent of bromides and barbiturates enhanced further investigation, and early in this century sleep treatment was relatively well systematized by Wolfin 1901 (40), Trend in 1903 (39), and by Kläsi in 1922 (25). This paper will not attempt to review the literature on sleep, for these findings have been outlined in papers by Palmer (32, 33), Baer (7), Ey (18), and recently in a documented book by Angel (2). The purpose of this paper is to present (1) a method of prolonged sleep treatment using the new inhibitory substance chlorpromazine (Largactil), in combination with different barbiturates in an attempt to provoke a sleep pattern as similar as possible to normal sleep, in contrast to deep unconsciousness advocated previously (14, 32); (2) to discuss underlying theories of sleep treatment, and propose some new formulations; (3) to suggest future use and investigation of the treatment; and (4) to bring to the attention of American psychiatrists a treatment which holds an eminent position in Europe, particularly in the U.S.S.R. where sleep therapy appears to be the only officially accepted form of treatment in mental illnesses.