Supports the Brain-Disabling Hypothesis

There is a particular irony in the date of the first publication on the use of lithium in mental patients Cade s article appeared in 1949, the same year that Corcoran et al. published Lithium Poisoning From the Use of Salt Substitutes in the Journal of the American Medical Association. 

In regard to neuroleptics, we found that pioneers in their use were most straightforward about its brain-disabling effects. We find the same phenomenon with lithium. Cade (1949) indicated that lithium, when used for other medicinal purposes, produced actual mental depression in a variety of patients, not just those suffering from mania or manic depression. The drug enforced a so-called quieting effect on persons he considered schizophrenic (dementia praecox, in his nosology)  

An important feature was that, although there was no fundamental improvement in any of them, three who were usually restless, noisy and shouting nonsensical abuse... lost their excitement and restlessness and became quiet and amenable for the first time in years. 

Cade (1949) preferred lithium to lobotomy on restless and psychopathic mental defectives in order to control their restless impulses and ungovernable tempers.  

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