We basically we know as sexual orientation is not a disease - not choice, always good to remember - enough already today we are enlightened to know that this is not something curable. It was not always so, however, and many crazy rituals have been performed against homosexuals.

Knowing these proposals healing is a way to understand how intolerance has promoted the various types of cruelty in the name of science and a "correct society." The Daily Mail has gathered some of the experiments conducted in the 1970s, involving electric shocks in an attempt to "cure" homosexuality and some mental illnesses. Check it:

B19 patient

In 1970, an attorney general of the US state of Louisiana authorized the holding of a bizarre experiment. Purpose? "Healing" homosexuality of a patient who was called only by B-19 code name. At the time he was 24 years old and with a series of electrodes implanted in his head, he had to have sex with a prostitute 21 years, hired especially for the experiment.

The idea was basically transform the pleasure felt by the young in a way to make it straight. The medical records of the boy, consisted that he was unmarried, white, born of a normal pregnancy, a member of a military family and a childhood considered quite unhappy. According to the same documents, the young enlisted in the Army, but was expelled after a month to present "homosexual tendencies."

In its history it consisted also that the young man had used drugs for three years and practiced homosexual acts for five years. Because of the use of narcotics, had experienced episodes of epilepsy in the brain region of the temporal lobe. The young man was depressed, had suicidal, was unsafe, and Procrastinator narcissist. According to the Doctor, B-19 had been manipulative and coercive in all your old emotional relationships.

"Treatment"

After a few years, B-19 was admitted to a psychiatric clinic in New Orleans and ended up being subjected to drastic treatments through stainless steel implants in nine regions of your brain, with wires coming out for his skull. After placing the implants, medical had a kind of remote control, with which could transmit the shock-19 B brain.

Before the shock, however, the child was subjected to a preliminary film showing scenes and sex of a heterosexual couple. B-19 reacted with anger and disgust, but said he found the most enjoyable scenes after sessions shocks. Each session lasted three hours, and the shocks were given when the B-19 itself pressed a button - detail: they were on average 1,500 shocks per session.

After ten days of treatment, the young man saw another adult content film without reluctance. During the exhibition, B-19 was sexually aroused, masturbated and had an orgasm. After the "treatment", said the young feel like having sex with women, and so it was authorized, the boy met the prostitute.

Bizarre science

The doctor Robert Heath.

The interaction between the two became more natural after the first time to "experiment", a fact that was mainly realized by the reaction of the girl, who took their underwear through and, after sex, lay beside him in bed. Following the young man was encouraged to spend time exploring the woman's body with his hands. To the satisfaction of doctors, he had orgasms.

The medical team then thought he was taking a big step to believe be able to stimulate a heterosexual behavior in a gay person - and looks the Kinsey scale, which covers several levels of sexuality, had been drawn up in the 1950s!

The head of the experiment, Robert Heath, was known for his charismatic and seductive personality, always move with his white lab coat as if he had all the scientific world autonomy. Psychiatrist and neurologist, Dr. Heath was fascinated by the brain region now known as the nucleus accumbens.

Psychosurgery

For the doctor, understand this brain region would be a way to "unlock" the human brain. His greatest experience as psychiatry was during the Second World War and, from there, then went on to defend the idea that psychiatric diseases could be treated by surgery, not therapy.

His theses are supported to the extent that he could some result that judged positive, as behavioral changes after performing lobotomies - considering that each millimeter of the brain is important in terms of behavior, emotions and motor responses, it is expected to take brain tissue, which is what is done by a lobotomy, can cause behavioral changes. At the time the procedure was called "psychosurgery", ie surgical treatment for mental illness.

Heath's team then went to work with a technique called "topectomia", which removed lower tissues of the cerebral cortex, to avoid further damage. At this point of his career, the doctor has devoted much of his time to study schizophrenia, for him, it was the biggest challenge of medicine in terms of mental health.

Schizophrenia

Heath realized that his schizophrenic patients showed no improvement after the lobotomy or topectomia and therefore he believed that the disease affected the deeper regions of the brain. From there, they began their investigations on the subcortex region. For Heath, schizophrenia was a biological problem, not psychological.

In 1949, Heath moved to New Orleans, and a year later, had managed an investment of US $ 400,000 from the US government to open a psychiatric institution with capacity for 150 inmates. The conquest did the doctor one of the main references in mental health throughout the state of Louisiana.

At this point, their psychiatric experiments were all funded by the US government, which facilitated the life of the doctor. When needed healthy volunteers, I had free access to the inmates of a prison in Angola.

Pleasure

In his psychiatric institute, the doctor demanded that all therapists who worked there to study and do analysis. The main focus of the research was the way the human brain feels pleasure. When he began his experiments "gay cure" in 1970, he had the help of other 200 professionals and medical students. At this point, the doctor was already recognized for developing less invasive methods of implanting electrodes in the human brain.

His experiments with electrodes were initially used in patients with schizophrenia, cancer, and chronic pain. Still, according to Professor Herbert S. Gaskill, Indiana University, the results were inconclusive or had a "priceless" as stated Heath.

Later, the use of electrodes made by Heath were considered arbitrary since it functioned only in animals but came to cause sores, seizures, infections and even death in some patients. Not to mention the reactions during the clashes: patients acted aggressively, tore their clothes and begged for it to stop.

No results

The experiments were conducted with electrodes for a long time, and it was noted that in the long term, the risks of this procedure were much greater than any benefit imagined by Heath. 22 patients submitted to shocks, eight had their brain waves permanently changed - half of them returned to normal, but the other half remained with strange behavior.

After a series of treatments of this type in schizophrenic patients, Heath continued his experiments on patients as B-19, which could enable the shocks hundreds of times in themselves to feel pleasure. From there, the doctor hoped to find treatments for other diseases and even the "gay cure".

At that time, the legislation for this type of experiment was very vague and different from what we have today. Other doctors also often implant electrodes in their patients, but only for a few days - have patients Heath were years with brain implants.

Long career but many questions

Throughout his career, the physician published at least 425 articles on their experiments - including those who wanted to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. In this case, the idea was to make the pass gays to feel attraction to the opposite sex, rather than revulsion. Similar techniques were used to treat women "frigid".

Years later the doctor's work, which was already widely known throughout the country, began to be questioned by other scientists who just could not prove their methods and said its conclusions were unfounded. In one experiment, for example, Heath said that could lead to behaviors of schizophrenics inject a substance in the brain of patients.

It turns out that years later it was discovered that the sustenance never existed and that people acted that way, in fact, for the sake of fear. They knew what the doctor expected and, afraid of what might happen if they do not act as such, simply behaved differently.

Modern conclusions

Moreover, in terms of homosexuality, others have managed to prove that, contrary to what Heath thought, homosexual behavior was determined on the basis of genetic information: there are two strands of DNA linked to homosexuality in men, confirming what still much people do not understand: it is guidance, not sexual OPTION. According to the researcher Qazi Rhaman, our genetic makeup is responsible for 40% of our sexual orientation.

Heath was criticized in many ways throughout his career. By doing experiments with African people, said it was cheaper to use than black cats in their laboratories. For him, everything was justifiable as long as his theories could be put into practice, although most of them were no more cruel forms of torture.

Still, the methods developed by Heath guide the current medicine, in a way. Today doctors still bet on shock therapies for the treatment of psychiatric disorders - never, however, is thought to "cure" homosexual as was done with B-19, because even sexual orientation is not a disease, and has something for which the studies of this doctor was served to prove it.