Lithium Saves Life

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. 

Soderbaum, Berzelius levnadsteckn-ing (Biography of Berzelius), in Swedish, 1929-31, Volume II, p. 99 

Bernhard, Med Berzelius bland fran-ska sniUen och slocknade vulkaner (With Berzelius among French geniuses and extinct volcanoes), in Swedish, WIKEN, Sweden, 1985 

Joyce A. Ober, Lithium chapter in US Geological Survey Mineral Commodity Summaries 2002, pp. 98-99, and Lithium chapter in US Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook 2000, Vol. I, Metals and Minerals, pp.47.1-47.6, 

Discovery R. W. Bunsen and G. Kirchhoff in Germany discovered the new element in 1861 during spectroscopic studies of lepidolite. 

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Lithium is the simplest therapeutic agent for the treatment of depression and has been used for over 100 years—lithium carbonate and citrate were described in the British Pharmacopoeia of 1885. Lithium therapy went through periods when it was in common use, and periods when it was discouraged. Finally, in 1949, J.J.F. Cade reported that lithium carbonate could reverse the symptoms of patients with bipolar disorder (manic-depression), a chronic disorder that affects between 1% and 2% of the population. The disease is characterized by episodic periods of elevated or depressed mood, severely reduces the patients quality of life and dramatically increases their likelihood of committing suicide. Today, it is the standard treatment, often combined with other drugs, for bipolar disorder and is prescribed in over 50% of bipolar disorder patients. It has clearly been shown to reduce the risk of suicide in mood disorder patients, and its socioeconomic impact is considerable—it is estimated to have saved around 9 billion in the USA alone in 1881. 

Delaney, K. Naval Sea Systems Command Issues Submarines Life-Saving Lithium Hydroxide Curtains Developed by Battelle. Available online. URL www.battelle.org/SPOTLIGHT/news archives/archive 04/4-06-04LithCurtain.aspx. Accessed on June 23, 2009. This article describes how lithium hydroxide curtains can remove hazardous carbon dioxide from the atmosphere of a disabled submarine, improving the crewmembers ability to survive while awaiting rescue. 

Lithium carbonate is used specifically for the prophylaxis or prevention of recurrent mood changes in patients suffering from manic depressive psychoses, the recurrent affective disorders. It is of limited use for other psychiatric states, with the possible exception of pathological aggression, where it does seem to have a role to play. Despite many scares, lithium is a very safe drug in experienced hands. The ability of lithium to reduce or abolish recurrent mood swings has undoubtedly improved immensely the quality of life of many patients and their families and saved the lives of many who would otherwise have been led to suicide. ... 

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