1927

Egas Moniz introduces cerebral angiography, “a diagnostic technique second in importance only to the ventriculography of Dandy” (Crowe, 105). His original contrast agent was sodium iodine, which he soon replaced with thorium dioxide, a radioactive compound used through early 1950s (Kevles, 105). Synthesis of the barbiturate sodium amytal (followed by sodium pentothal in 1929), used as surgical anesthetics, then as psychoactive agents by Bleckwenn & Lorenz at University of Wisconsin-Madison: “In the late 1920s, Bleckwenn and Lorenz began to use amytal to produce states of profound unconsciousness in patients who had been catatonic for long period – months, and even years. They found that this allowed them temporarily to revive activity, communicativeness, and some element of the former normal selves of their patients” (Winter, 374-75).