Bipolar Through the Ages
The ancient Greeks and Romans coined the terms “mania” and “melancholia” and used waters of northern Italian spas to treat agitated or euphoric patients—and in a forecast of things to come—believed that lithium salts were absorbed into the body as a naturally occurring mineral.
In 300–400 BC, the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle had thanked “melancholia” for the gifts of artists, poets, and writers, the creative minds of his time. Conversely, in the Middle Ages, those afflicted with mental illness were thought to be guilty of wrongdoing: their illness was surely a manifestation of bad deeds, it was thought.
.. A discussion of medications to treat bipolar cannot be complete without acknowledging the work of John Cade, an Australian physician who introduced lithium to the practice of psychiatry in 1949 quite by accident when he observed that lithium urate appeared to calm guinea pigs.
.. Understandably, pharmaceutical companies and academicians were not elated about a naturally occurring mineral salt that was “old news.” In no small part because of Dr. Schou’s efforts, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally approved lithium as a treatment for mania in 1970, and in 1974, as a preventive treatment for manic-depressive illness.