MENTAL ILLNESS: SEVEN OF TEN CAN RECOVER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 89, 1 September 1948, Page 7

MENTAL ILLNESS: SEVEN OF TEN CAN RECOVER

( By the Department of Health) Most thinking people know that mental illness is simply a form of ailment that attacks the brain instead of some other part of the body. Sometimes the cure for these ailments is quick, in other cases slow. Sometimes as with many other bodily illnesses, the patients never fully recover. Again, as with so many illnesses, early recognition and treatment save complete breakdowns in some forms of mental illness. “Shock” treatment* for mental patients is an interesting and often completely efficacious development. This may ba by electric shock, special dosages of insulin, or heavy vitamin intake. There are cases where artificiallyinduced fever overcomes the effects cf mental illnesses due to infection. And in other degrees and types of mental trouble newly discovered drugs work wonders. The result of all this is that there’ 4 , a seven out of ten chance of recovery from mental illness nowadays. But the earlier the signs of approaching mental illness- are detected, the better chance there is of being one of The seven. Don’t delay in arranging for a consultation with i mental specialist, or a diagnostic clinic in our ' cities. Nor need you fear the treatment. To the unfamiliar, electric . shock treatment may sound dreadful, but its admiinstration is skilled and safe, and in suitable cases' it’s quicker than shock by injections. Nothing unpleasant is felt, and no memory afterwards of anything from the moment the current is switched on. A series of these shocks spread over a period of weeks may bring about a complete recovery of sanity. The public has an instinctive fear of electricity—which ordinarily is just as well. But. the current used for shock treatment of mental patients is scientifically regulated so as not to do harm. Its effect is one of the marvels of science. It shocks the tottering brain back to sanity and is not an unpleasant process to the patient. If you suspect signs of mental illness in your household, get along to an appropriate doctor as soon as possibles ' <