Troubled minds : lithium revolution

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Summary

In the 1940s, an Australian doctor discovered an astonishing treatment for what was then known as manic depression. At a time when electric shock, lobotomy, and Freudian psychotherapy were the only...

In the 1940s, an Australian doctor discovered an astonishing treatment for what was then known as manic depression. At a time when electric shock, lobotomy, and Freudian psychotherapy were the only approaches to treating the disorder, lithium changed the way the medical establishment thought about mental illness and neuroscience and initiated the era of psychopharmacology. This program tells the story of the lithium revolution, from John Cade's research and historical breakthrough to its acceptance-despite decades of resistance by pharmaceutical companies and a ban due to deaths from the drug's toxic effects-as the standard treatment for what is now called bipolar disorder.

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