At a time when treatment by electrically induced convulsions is attaining a rapid and widespread popularity in clinical psychiatry, it is well to take stock of alternative methods. The purpose of this paper is to describe a method of modifying the treatment of mental disorders by leptazol (cardiazol, metrazol, phrenazol) so as to remove the unpleasantness hitherto associated with this treatment. Though leptazol therapy is still widely employed in psychiatry, its use has, for two reasons, become increasingly restricted. Firstly, it is very unpleasant for the patient; secondly, newer physical treatments, no less empirical, often yield better results in the conditions in which it was used.