Part: 12         Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536         Page 152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181 of 1143

Unorthodox. We had one member of the National Committee Against Mental Illness resign, Dr. Lloyd Grinker of Chicago, because we were advocating the use of drugs so strongly that he felt that he had to resign from the Committee.

Now, a very unusual thing happened. Very seldom do people make big discoveries more than once, clinical discoveries; it's very seldom, I think. But Klein and I were talking about the fact that even though the tranquilizing drugs helped many people and many people who hadn't been in the hospitals too long to lead social lives again, social in the sense of being able to go out and meet other people and earn a living, there were many people in the state hospitals who were in deep depressions. Whenever anything would be said about the success of tranquiling drugs psychiatrists would say, “Yes, but you haven't got anything for depression.” Well, this annoyed Klein--and he's very ingenious--and he recalled that there was a picture of TB patients in Seaview Hospital in February of '52 which showed them dancing in the corridors because of the use of a successful drug called Iproniazid, and it was said to give them a great elevation of mood. This stuck in his mind and he decided to try some of this drug on his depressed patients. It did indeed elevate the mood of his depressed patients. It was reported in a Senate testimony for the first time, not in a medical publication, in '57 or '59. The drug was then called Marsalid. It did have some toxic side-effects, but it was used on about 500,000 people, and by this time a large number of pharmaceutical companies devised other