Convulsion therapy may now be considered to have established a position for itself in psychiatry, and in particular there is now a consensus of opinion that in states of depression occurring in later life it offers a chance of recovery for the patient unrivalled by any other form of therapy. The treatment is associated with a risk of causing compression fractures of the spinal vertebrae, and especially in the age-groups above 60 one is still concerned with the violence of the muscular spasm produced at the treatment. In July, 1939, at the Woodside Hospital we first commenced to study the problem of vertebral fractures complicating convulsion therapy, and also to investigate the general problems involved in rendering the treatment safe for our involutional cases. Our first attempt was with curarine, which we were enabled to give to a few of our patients in the psychiatric department of the Middlesex Hospital owing to the facilities placed at our disposal by the research pharmacological department.