This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Psychiatry  • Alert me on articles by topic

M. J. Friedrich

JAMA. 2005;293:535-536.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

San Diego—After weathering numerous manic attacks and hospitalizations, 20th-century poet Robert Lowell found relief in treatment with lithium carbonate. Lowell commented to his publisher, Robert Giroux, "It’s terrible, Bob, to think that all I’ve suffered, and all the suffering I’ve caused, might have arisen from the lack of a little salt in my brain" (Lowell R. Collected Prose. Giroux R, ed. New York, NY: Farrar Strauss & Giroux; 1987:xiii-xiv).

A dash of lithium to season the moods of those who, like Lowell, experience the highs of mania and the depths of depression revolutionized the treatment of bipolar disorder after the drug’s effects were first reported in 1949 and it subsequently came into clinical use. However, neither lithium nor other current treatments for bipolar disorder, such as valproic acid, are without problems. Many patients respond poorly to these mood-stabilizing drugs, and adverse effects often interfere with . . . [Full Text of this Article]

A NEW TARGET