Ladislas J. Meduna

Ladislas Meduna Joseph (* 1896, † 1964) was a Hungarian psychiatrist and founder of pentylenetetrazol - convulsive therapy.

After studying medicine Meduna worked at the Brain Research Centre in Budapest. He believed that there was an antagonism between schizophrenia and epilepsy. The initiation of artificial seizures in schizophrenic patients he tried to treat schizophrenia since 1933. In the first publications, he reported on 26 patients, of whom 10 had been "cured".

In order to trigger the seizures Meduna used camphor, later the drug pentylenetetrazol. After a few years the cardiazol convulsive therapy was replaced by the electric Konvulsions therapy.

The growing anti-Semitism under the authoritarian regime of Miklós Horthy Hungarian prompted him in 1939 to emigrate to the United States where he worked at a clinic in Chicago.