Drugs have always been part of mental health care whether legal
or illegal, prescribed or self-administered. Sedatives played a
major role in controlling people inside asylums. Nerve tonics
helped people stay out of them. Specific drugs treating specific
mental health problems only became reality after the Second
World War. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a French
pharmaceutical company investigated drugs for sedating patients
during surgery. It discovered chlorpromazine, a drug which
relaxed patients without making them sleepy. This attracted the
attention of psychiatrists, who soon reported it ‘straightened
out’ disordered thinking and behaviour. Chlorpromazine quickly
caught on among psychiatrists in Europe and North America as it
was less dangerous and labour-intensive than existing treatments
for severe mental illness, such as electroconvulsive therapy
(ECT) and lobotomy. The idea of a ‘magic bullet’ to treat mental
health problems, in a way comparable to penicillin treating
infections, propelled rese