A FEW years ago I was asked to visit a psychiatric hospital in Romania.

There I saw an ECT room barely big enough to contain a large wooden table which had upon it leather buckled thongs placed at the areas where the neck, ankles and wrists would be located to restrain the patient.

It reminded me very much of Frankenstein's castle and his insane experiments. Believe me, thrashing a child to make it be quiet has a very limited effect, and that practice as well as ECT should be placed in the archives along with the Third Reich.

Peter Pollard,

Ponderosa Caravan Park,

Sutton-on-the-Forest,

York.

Updated: 09:39 Thursday, March 16, 2006