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In many hospital systems, lobotomies are now being abandoned or used rarely. There are other changes. Use of electric shock is down, in some cases as much as 90%. Patients who formerly had to be restrained, either mechanically (with cuffs or camisoles) or chemically (with large doses of barbiturates), are now calm without being groggy. In many hospitals, attendance at church, at dances, requests for occupational therapy and work assignments have doubled. Whatever its long-range effects on mental illness, the pills-for-the-mind revolution has already brought a striking new atmosphere of hope into the dark reaches of the back wards.
* Marketed in the U.S. under the trade name Thorazine by Smith, Kline & French; in Canada as Largactil by Poulenc, Ltd.
† Biggest U.S. supplier, under the trade name Serpasil, is Ciba Pharma ceutical Products Inc.