Lithium - John Cade
manic treatment medical pigs
The story of lithium parallels other stories in medical history where the medicinal value of a substance is discovered accidently. In 1949, John Cade, an Australian psychiatrist, decided to experiment with lithium on guinea pigs. He theorized that uric acid was a cause of manic behavior. Since he needed to keep the uric acid soluble, he used lithium salts as an agent in the solution. The guinea pigs did not become manic as he expected, but instead they responded by becoming extremely calm.
When Cade used the lithium treatment on 10 manic patients, he reported remarkable improvement in the patients' condition. One patient who had been in a manic state for five years was able to leave the hospital after a three-month treatment and resume a normal life. Cade reported his results in the Medical Journal of Australia, but his findings did not have an impact on the medical community at that time.
When Cade carried out his experiments, reports of lithium poisonings were widespread in the United States. It was not until the work of Mogens Schou, who campaigned for recognition of lithium as a treatment for manic-depressive illness, that acceptance of lithium began. In the United States, however, it did not gain full FDA approval until 1974, although trials were conducted during the 1960s.
User Comments
almost 3 years ago
The work cited below is suspect as it is written by an apologist who has intellectual connections that make his work questionable.
Many other sources exist which document Cade's scientific approach to his discovery, and the difficulty of getting lithium widely introduced was largely due to the difficulty in titrating the correct dosage so it should be enough to be therapeutic, but not too much so it would be toxic.
As I have been treated by two very excellent psychopharmacologists who have both told me the same story, I tend to believe them.
almost 3 years ago
Thankyou for this interesting article. However it pains me to inform you it is factually incorrect. A new psychopharmacology text has just been released shedding light on the history of lithium therapy; and the true role played by John Cade, often, perhaps erroneously cited as been blessed with serendipity.
If you are interested in following this up, please go to http://www.brascoebooks.com.au/store_lithiumdetail.html