A bit of history: Delgado was an incredibly unlucky guy. He completed his MD in Spain right as the civil war kicked off. He served on the opposition side, and was held as a POW in the late 1930s (rumors are that he served with Hemmingway). Because of political stuff, he had to REPEAT his medical school/MD studies. Take that, people who ask if they are too old. Also got a PhD along the way. Went to Yale to study physiology in the 1950s. Did some electrical stimulation experiments, not unlike the human studies by Wilder Penfield around the same time. Delgado also experimented in implanted devices on treatment refractory psychiatric patients which would deliver microcurrents, which mirrors the use of ECT at the time. Delgado keeps his research up, and publishes a book about his belief that maybe there are more humane ways to deal with things like violent offender who have to serve life sentences because they can't control their behaviors, or psychaitric patients who require lifelong hospitalization (this still being a thing at the time). In some ways it makes sense: you have a violent person who can't keep the social contract and repeatedly violate the rights of others. You can throw them in a cage until they die, society ends up paying for them, and everyone loses. Or, as Delagdo believed, you could implant a device that makes violence a literal impossibility and return the person to freedom. The problem? He published this stuff in 1969.... Not exactly the best time to talk about controlling society. He ended up moving back to Spain, as a professor at a medical school. Guess how the country which had just kicked a dictator out felt about him continuing his research?
His work remains important. Arguably, it is part of the foundation of TMS.
