ABSTRACT
Lithium is an odd-ball: it is the smallest and lightest solid element, it has unusual clinical, pharmacologic and biochemical properties, it is not classified into any generally accepted group of drugs, it cannot be patented and it can be dug out of the ground very cheaply. Yet after more than 55 years of widespread clinical use, it is still interesting because of its apparent simplicity. Its physicochemical properties are by no means as complex as those of the organic drugs with which we are much more familiar. These properties also may be of particular value in our understanding of other fundamental processes in drug-receptor interactions specifically because of the relative simplicity of the interactions involved.
