In the Hospital of the School of Health in this capital, there is a phenomenon well worthy all the attention and researches of Physicians and Naturalists. It is an Englishman, whose limbs are partially petrified, at the same time that the blood continues to circulate in all the parts which are not in a petrified state.

In 1952 Delgado co-authored the first a peer-reviewed paper describing long-term electrode implantation in humans. Much of Delgado’s work was funded by the Office of Naval Intelligence, a conduit for CIA funding in the 1950s and 1960s. He implanted a stimoceiver in at least 25 humans — mostly women diagnosed with schizophrenia or epilepsy. The device was heralded as a great scientific contribution in the 1960s and 1970s. In his article in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (1968) he stated that “brain transmitters can remain in a person’s head for life.” In 1969, Delgado published Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society, in which foresees a new era when humans will undergo “psycho-civilization” by linking their brains directly to machines.

Delgado’s stimoceiver was used clinically to inhibit or incite aggression in patients which Delgado viewed as a humane alternative to lobotomy. Several of Delgado’s experiments were recorded on film. One shows a woman calmly playing a guitar until an electric current remotely stimulates her brain, at which point she jumps up violently and smashes her guitar against the wall. The experiment was repeated three days in a row. Delgado also used non-invasive remotely controlled electromagnetic radiation. He proudly summed up how he has “used electrodes implanted for days or months to block thought, speech, and movement, or to trigger joy, laughter, friendliness, verbal activity, generosity, fear, hallucinations, and memory.”