1. Ugo Cerletti was an Italian neurologist who discovered the method of electroconvulsive therapy used in psychiatry.
13 Facts About Ugo Cerletti
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Ugo Cerletti was born in Conegliano, in the region of Veneto, Italy, on 26 September 1877.
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Ugo Cerletti studied Medicine at Rome and Turin, later specializing in neurology and neuropsychiatry.
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Ugo Cerletti demonstrated how the nervous tissue reacts to different pathogenic stimuli in its own ways, making the histopathology of nervous tissue an independent category in the study of medicine.
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Ugo Cerletti studied with the most eminent neurologists of his time, first in Paris, France, with Pierre Marie and Dupre, then in Munich, Germany, with Emil Kraepelin and Alois Alzheimer ; and in Heidelberg, with Franz Nissl, a neuropathologist.
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Ugo Cerletti remained the director of the Neurobiological Institute of the psychiatric hospital of Mombello, in Milan from 1919 to 1924.
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Ugo Cerletti was appointed Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Rome La Sapienza.
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The idea to use ECT in humans first came to Ugo Cerletti from watching pigs being anesthetised with electroshock before being butchered.
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Ugo Cerletti reasoned that electric shock might be useful in humans as a treatment for schizophrenia.
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Ugo Cerletti first used ECT in a human patient, a diagnosed schizophrenic with delusions, hallucinations and confusion, in April 1938, in collaboration with Lucio Bini.
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Ugo Cerletti was noted to be the first person to deliver a stress treatment in which the patient did not suffer any discomfort.
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Ugo Cerletti put his theory into practice by injecting patients with a suspension of electroshocked pig brain.
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Away from his medical work, Ugo Cerletti is credited with introducing the idea of white uniforms for alpine troops in order to reduce visibility during the First World War.