Manfred Sakel

Manfred Joshua Sakel (1900–1957) was an Austrian-American neurophysiologist and psychiatrist best known for developing insulin shock therapy (also called insulin coma therapy) in 1927 as a treatment for schizophrenia and other psychoses. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna and later emigrated to the United States, where he worked as an attending physician and researcher at Harlem Valley State Hospital in New York. His method was widely adopted in psychiatric institutions worldwide before being gradually replaced by electroconvulsive therapy and neuroleptic drugs. Sakel died of heart failure on December 2, 1957, in New York City at the age of 57.