Eoghan Harris (Independent)

My point is that they do not have to and the empirical question is whether it works. It is quite all right if it works and it saves people's lives and wait for the Garret FitzGerald theory to come later. Most of humanity's progress has been through trial and error.

The third thing I learned is that most of the people who believe ECT is bad news on all counts have never spent long periods in psychiatric hospitals. Nor have they suffered from serious endogenous depression, as I have. Anyone who has suffered from serious endogenous depression will be very glad to avail of ECT. The entire motor system shuts down. It is good enough for Dr. Anthony Clare and for many of the eminent psychiatrists in Britain and Ireland. If all else fails and they cannot reach patients whose lives are at stake, ECT has worked. Spike Milligan told me that he did not like it and that it damaged his memory but that if there was a trade-off between his memory and his life, he knew where he stood. ECT is not a lucid and clear theory. All we know is that it works on critical and far gone patients. We should not take that weapon out of the armoury or weaken its public standing. On cost benefit analysis for the patient, there are not many times when a patient's only resort and last call is ECT. It is a weapon in the armoury of science and medicine and it should not be laid down until a better weapon is produced.