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Past, Present, and Perspectives

Mogens Schou, MD

JAMA. 1988;259(12):1834-1836.

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

EVEN though the title of this article refers to the past of lithium treatment, I shall spare the reader a lengthy account of its history and instead concentrate more on the situation today and the tasks for tomorrow.

PAST: EFFICACY

It is, however, only appropriate that I mention here the two clinical psychiatrists who have been key figures in the development of lithium treatment: John Cade, MD,¹ who in the late 1940s gave lithium to psychiatric patients and discovered its antimanic action, and Poul Christian Baastrup, MD,^2,3 who saw and participated in the documentation of its relapse-preventive or prophylactic action against not only manic but also depressive recurrences. Cade and Baastrup were conscientious clinicians who knew their patients well and who had keen observational powers (Figure).

Lithium treatment has gone through a number of developmental phases and crises. They dealt with whether it worked at all or merely . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Psychopharmacology Research Unit, Århus University Institute of Psychiatry, and the Psychiatric Hospital, Risskov, Denmark.

Footnotes
Based on a lecture given at the presentation of the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award, New York, Nov18,1987.

Reprint requests to Psykiatrisk Hospital, 2 Skovagervej, 8240 Risskov, Denmark (Dr Schou).

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