There have been few published reports of the use of E.C.T. in delirious states complicating organic illness. Most psychiatric textbooks with adequate accounts of modern physical treatments allude only briefly to its use in these states, and few medical textbooks mention it at all. Yet the problem of the management of the acutely disturbed delirious patient is not a rarity in medical and surgical wards; in varying degrees delirium may accompany most serious illnesses and prognosis worsens with its persistence. For these reasons it is thought worth placing on record the following cases.

The case records of patients with organic delirium admitted in the past fifteen years to the psychiatric unit of St. George's Hospital were examined. Those cases receiving E.C.T., all seriously disturbed and otherwise unmanageable, are reported in this paper.