<P> Leonard Roy Frank, an American human rights activist and survivor of 50 forced insulin coma treatments combined with ECT has described the treatment as "the most devastating, painful and humiliating experience of my life", a "flat - out atrocity" glossed over by psychiatric euphemism, and a violation of basic human rights . </P> <P> In 2013, French physician - and - novelist Laurent Seksik wrote an historical novel about the tragic life of Eduard Einstein: Le cas Eduard Einstein . He related the encounter between Dr Sakel and Mileva Maric, Albert Einstein's first wife (and Eduard's mother), and the way Sakel's therapy had been given to Eduard, who was afflicted with schizophrenia . </P> <P> Like many new medical treatments for diseases previously considered incurable, depictions of insulin shock therapy in the media were initially favorable . In the 1940 film Dr. Kildare's Strange Case, young Kildare uses the new "insulin shock cure for schizophrenia" to bring a man back from insanity to prove that the surgeon who removed a brain tumor from the patient wasn't at fault for the patient's condition . The film dramatically shows a five - hour treatment that ends with a patient eating jelly sandwiches and reconnecting with his wife . Other films of the era began to show a more sinister approach, beginning with the 1946 film Shock, in which actor Vincent Price plays a doctor who plots to murder a patient using an overdose of insulin in order to keep the fact that he was a murderer the secret . More recent films include Frances (1982) in which actress Frances Farmer undergoes insulin shock treatment, and A Beautiful Mind, which depicted genius John Nash undergoing insulin treatment . In an episode of the medical drama House_M. D., Dr. House puts himself in an insulin shock to try to make his hallucinations disappear . </P>

What was the treatment in a beautiful mind