Since the inception of the use of artificially induced convulsions as a therapeutic agent in 1935 by Meduna and the modification of this method of treatment by the use of electric currents by Cerletti and Bini in 1938, a vast literature has accumulated on this form of psychiatric treatment. Yet, despite this vast literature and the passage of over 30 years of experimental opportunity, no predominant or convincing rationale for the use of electroconvulsive therapy (E.C.T.) has emerged; Meduna's (53) original theory of the incompatibility of schizophrenia and epilepsy having been long discredited. E.C.T. remains, therefore, an empirical form of treatment.