Global therapies, local psychiatrists: shock treatment circulation and its implementation in Rosario, Argentina, 1936-1944

Abstract This article analyses the implementation of biological shock treatments in the Psychiatric Institute of Rosario, Argentina, during the interwar period. The aim is to illuminate the impact that a global phenomenon, referred to the strengthening of the discipline and the emergence of new therapies, had on an Argentinean psychiatric care space. Thus, it will analyse the relevance that budgetary limitations, the experimentation of alternatives and the presence of international experts had in the incorporation of therapeutic novelties. It is argued that the strategies deployed by the Institute to implement them expose the local nuances of a global phenomenon, as well as its contribution to the experimentation of treatments.