The History of Lithium Therapy

The History of Lithium Therapy PDF Author: Frederick Neil Johnson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349072893
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description

The History of Lithium Therapy

The History of Lithium Therapy PDF Author: Frederick Neil Johnson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349072893
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description


Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough

Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough PDF Author: Walter A. Brown
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631492004
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The remarkable untold story of a miracle drug, the forgotten pioneer who discovered it, and the fight to bring lithium to the masses. The DNA double helix, penicillin, the X-ray, insulin—these are routinely cited as some of the most important medical discoveries of the twentieth century. And yet, the 1949 discovery of lithium as a cure for bipolar disorder is perhaps one of the most important—yet largely unsung—breakthroughs of the modern era. In Lithium, Walter Brown, a practicing psychiatrist and professor at Brown, reveals two unlikely success stories: that of John Cade, the physician whose discovery would come to save an untold number of lives and launch a pharmacological revolution, and that of a miraculous metal rescued from decades of stigmatization. From insulin comas and lobotomy to incarceration to exile, Brown chronicles the troubling history of the diagnosis and (often ineffective) treatment of bipolar disorder through the centuries, before the publication of a groundbreaking research paper in 1949. Cade’s “Lithium Salts in the Treatment of Psychotic Excitement” described, for the first time, lithium’s astonishing efficacy at both treating and preventing the recurrence of manic-depressive episodes, and would eventually transform the lives of patients, pharmaceutical researchers, and practicing physicians worldwide. And yet, as Brown shows, it would be decades before lithium would overcome widespread stigmatization as a dangerous substance, and the resistance from the pharmaceutical industry, which had little incentive to promote a naturally occurring drug that could not be patented. With a vivid portrait of the story’s unlikely hero, John Cade, Brown also describes a devoted naturalist who, unlike many modern medical researchers, did not benefit from prestigious research training or big funding sources (Cade’s “laboratory” was the unused pantry of an isolated mental hospital). As Brown shows, however, these humble conditions were the secret to his historic success: Cade was free to follow his own restless curiosity, rather than answer to an external funding source. As Lithium makes tragically clear, medical research—at least in America—has transformed in such a way that serendipitous discoveries like Cade’s are unlikely to occur ever again. Recently described by the New York Times as the “Cinderella” of psychiatric drugs, lithium has saved countless of lives and billions of dollars in healthcare costs. In this revelatory biography of a drug and the man who fought for its discovery, Brown crafts a captivating picture of modern medical history—revealing just how close we came to passing over this extraordinary cure.

The Science and Practice of Lithium Therapy

The Science and Practice of Lithium Therapy PDF Author: Gin S. Malhi
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319459236
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
This book provides a clear and comprehensive guide to the clinical prescription of lithium that draws upon evidence-based knowledge of its mechanisms of action. The book is divided into two parts, on the science of lithium and the practice of lithium therapy. The former covers aspects such as the properties of the lithium ion, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, impact on neurotransmission, and gene expression modulation. The section on practice includes discussion of variability in response to lithium, use of lithium in the treatment of bipolar disorders, its value in suicide prevention, administration during pregnancy and in the pediatric age group, and side effects. Lithium is arguably the only true mood stabilizer, and its multifaceted effects across many clinical domains have given rise to a resurgence of interest in recent years, fuelled by both researchers and clinicians. Nevertheless, its use remains constrained by exaggerated concerns about potential side-effects. In reality, lithium is a simple molecule that is relatively straightforward to administer and monitor and has potentially profound benefits at a fraction of the cost of contemporary agents. This book dispels the many myths and concerns that surround its use and will be of interest for clinicians and researchers worldwide, and those that are recipients of lithium therapy.

Finding Sanity

Finding Sanity PDF Author: Greg de Moore
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1952534755
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
The first biography of the ground breaking Australian doctor who discovered the first pharmacological treatment for mental illness. For most of human history, mental illness has been largely untreatable. Sufferers lived their lives - if they survived - in and out of asylums, accumulating life's wreckage around them. In 1948, all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, working alone in a disused kitchen, set about an experimental treatment for one of the scourges of mankind - manic depression, or bipolar disorder. That doctor was John Cade and in that small kitchen he stirred up a miracle. John Cade discovered a treatment that has become the gold standard for bipolar disorder - lithium. It has stopped more people from committing suicide than a thousand help lines. Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health - the first effective medication discovered for the treatment of a mental illness - and it is, without doubt, Australia's greatest mental health story.

Handbook of Lithium Therapy

Handbook of Lithium Therapy PDF Author: F.N. Johnson
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401171971
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
As a medical student in the 1930s, I remember well that a very clear line of distinction was drawn between physical illness and mental illness. Physical illness resulted from pathology which could be identified and studied in detail and the cause could often be deduced. Treatment thus was often specific and based upon a proper appreciation of underlying basic science. Mental illness, on the other hand, could not, it was believed, be based upon identifiable changes in basic science. It was literally 'all in the mind' and, occurring in the absence of causes that could be identified, analysed and remedied, had no treatment that could in any way be called specific. N ow it is all too easy, in Medicine, for a doctor to become so immersed in a specialty that he fails to notice how his colleagues in other specialties are faring and, through laziness, to miss advances even of fundamental importance in fields other than those in which he himself works. As a consultant surgeon, after W orId War II, although I realized the importance of keeping in touch with those medical specialties which appeared to have a common interface with my own surgical interests, such as general medi cine, gastro-enterology, hepatology and endocrinology, it did not occur to me that there was any pressing need to ask what was new in Psychological Medicine.

History of the Introduction of Lithium Into Medicine and Psychiatry

History of the Introduction of Lithium Into Medicine and Psychiatry PDF Author: Johan Schioldann
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780980547702
Category : Drugs
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
This book traces the history of lithium therapy back to the 1800s. It contests the notion that the Australian man John Cade, who pioneered lithium therapy in Australia in the 1940s, was the first man to use the therapy. Tracing the history of lithium therapy, and evaluating Cade's research and potential breadth of reading and resources, the author comes to the conclusion that Cade was aware of previous writings on the topic but never acknowledged it. Cade has therefore become known as the 'pioneer' of this therapy, incorrectly.

NeuroPsychopharmacotherapy

NeuroPsychopharmacotherapy PDF Author: Peter Riederer
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303062059X
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 4652

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Book Description
This book provides a reference guide describing the current status of medication in all major psychiatric and neurological indications, together with comparisons of pharmacological treatment strategies in clinical settings in Europe, USA, Japan and China. In addition, it highlights herbal medicine as used in China and Japan, as well as complementary medicine and nutritional aspects. This novel approach offers international readers a global approach in a single dedicated publication and is also a valuable resource for anyone interested in comparing treatments for psychiatric disorders in three different cultural areas. There are three volumes devoted to Basic Principles and General Aspects, offering a general overview of psychopharmacotherapy (Vol. 1); Classes, Drugs and Special Aspects covering the role of psychotropic drugs in the field of psychiatry and neurology (Vol. 2) and Applied Psychopharmacotherapy focusing on applied psychopharmacotherapy (Vol. 3). These books are invaluable to psychiatrists, neurologists, neuroscientists, medical practitioners and clinical psychologists.

Pharmacological Treatment of Mental Disorders in Primary Health Care

Pharmacological Treatment of Mental Disorders in Primary Health Care PDF Author: World Health Organization
Publisher: World Health Organization
ISBN: 9241547693
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
This manual attempts to provide simple, adequate and evidence-based information to health care professionals in primary health care especially in low- and middle-income countries to be able to provide pharmacological treatment to persons with mental disorders. The manual contains basic principles of prescribing followed by chapters on medicines used in psychotic disorders; depressive disorders; bipolar disorders; generalized anxiety and sleep disorders; obsessive compulsive disorders and panic attacks; and alcohol and opioid dependence. The annexes provide information on evidence retrieval, assessment and synthesis and the peer view process.

Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness

Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness PDF Author: Anne Harrington
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324001976
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Mind Fixers tells the history of psychiatry’s quest to understand the biological basis of mental illness and asks where we need to go from here. In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington, author of The Cure Within, explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds. But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time. Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well. In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones. A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.

Discoveries in Biological Psychiatry

Discoveries in Biological Psychiatry PDF Author: Frank J. Ayd (Jr.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biological psychiatry
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description