Cade, John

Names associated in these discoveries include Roland Kuhn and John Cade. While looking for a treatment for depression, Kuhn worked with thorazine, the newly found drug effective with schizophrenia. He progressed to find the second classification of antidepres-... 

When studying manic patients, who have a form of depression with periods of abnormal excitability and excessive activity, Australian psychiatrist John Cade found that lithium had a controlling effect on the patient s mania. He used lithium as a solvent when he attempted to inject the urine of manic patients into guinea pigs and found it made the urine less toxic. It was this finding that sparked his interest in lithium. In 1948 he injected lithium into ten patients and observed that lithium controlled their mania. 

The importance of this history is that it meant there was a precedent for the use of lithium as a medicine. It also meant that lithium was readily available for experimentation in the pharmacies of psychiatric hospitals. Therefore when John Cade, an Australian psychiatrist, suggested that lithium might be a useful treatment in people with mania in the 1940s, it did not seem curious. Cade also experimented with use of the elements strontium and cerium in the treatment of psychiatric disorders, but they never caught on in the same way because there was no prior history of medicinal use. 

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. 

A new use for lithium carbonate was discovered in 1949 when John Cade (1912-1980), an Australian physician, found that patients with bipolar disorder benefited from taking the substance. Bipolar disorder is a condition once known as manic-depressive disorder. The condition is characterized by dramatic mood swings. A person can be very happy and carefree one moment, but terribly depressed the next moment. Some patients become so depressed that they commit suicide. Until 1949, there was no effective treatment for bipolar disorder. 

The first half of the 20th century brought further attempts to use drugs and other therapies to treat mental illness. For example, tests were conducted on the effectiveness of giving amphetamines to depressed and narcoleptic patients, and carbon dioxide inhalation procedures were used in the treatment of illnesses referred to as psychoses and neuroses. Also used in the treatment of psychoses were antihistamines, insulin shock, and psychosurgery. Electroshock therapy was used to treat severe depression (a procedure still used today). Finally, in 1949 an Australian physician named John Cade discovered that the alkali metal lithuim successfully moderated manic conditions, although concerns about toxic reactions to it prevented its approval for use in the United States until 1970. Lithium remains a mainstay in the treatment of bipolar illnesses today. 

In 1949, the Australian physician John Cade discovered the benefits of lithium in the treatment of mania, and lithium remains a mainstay in the treatment of that disorder today. 

I The Australian psychiatrist John Cade first proposed the use of lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement in 1949, though its sedative and depressant properties had been known since at least the preceding century. 

Modem psychiatric treatments were introduced in 1948, when lithium carbonate was discovered as a treatment for mania by Australian psychiatrist John F. Cade. After Cade s initial report, lithium treatment was principally developed in Denmark by Mogens Schou (1918-), beginning in 1954. After a decade of trials by these and other groups in the USA and abroad, the Psychiatric Association and the Lithium Task Force recommended lithium to the Food and Drug Administration for therapy of mania in 1969, 20 years after its discovery by Cade. In 1970, the FDA approved the prescription drug. A breakthrough had finally been achieved in the treatment and prevention of one of the world s major mental health problems in the form of manic depression, and the genetically related forms of recurrent depression. 

The antipsychotic action of Li was discovered by accident in the 1940s by Australian psychiatrist John Cade as he was researching the use of uric acid a component of urine to treat manic-depressive illness. He administered the add to manic laboratory... 

OSR92] Sam Owre, Natarajan Shankar, and John Rushby. Pvs A prototype verification system. In 11th International Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE), Saratoga Springs, NY, pages 748-752, June 1992. 

Lithium is not essential for vital functions but has an effect on the nervous system. It has an important use as a medicine for treatment of manic-depressive illness. Two Danish doctors and brothers, Carl and Fritz Lange, reported at the end of the 19 century that lithium might prevent and cure depressions. The observation was forgotten. An Australian scientist, John Cade, found and followed the trail and in 1949 published results showing that lithium salts can, in a miraculous way, help manic people to a normal life. Why. Owing to the chemical similarities between lithium and sodium ions, the former may interfere with and influence the messages of the nerves, conveyed by the latter. For many people lithium prophylaxis has produced a wonderful freedom from fluctuations in the frame of mind with all the disturbances of life they can lead to. 

Scheme 20 (Adapted with permission from J. H. G. Steinke, B. W. Greenland, S. Johns, M. P, Parker, R. C. J. Atkinson, I. a. Cade, P. Golding and S. J. Trussell, ACS Macro Lett, 2014, 3, 548, Copyright 2014 American Chemical Society).

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