ABSTRACT
The discovery of lithium in 1817 took place at a time when only 49 chemical elements were known and half a century before the Periodic System came into being. The lightest of all elements, silvery lithium, was discovered in the laboratories of the famous Swedish scientist Berzelius (1). Other scientists tried very early to use lithium in medicine and agriculture. Since lithium urate is the most soluble urate compound (2), lithium salts were used for the treatment of gout in 1850. Due to unpleasant side effects, this method disappeared in the course of time (3). Almost 100 years passed before lithium again played a role in medicine and the science of nutrition. Lithium chloride was used as a substitute for cooking salt in the United States at the end of the 1940s, until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration prohibited its use after four deaths (4) and the occurrence of heart and kidney disorders. At about the same time, Cade (5) used lithium urate to test the effect of uric acid on the toxicity of urea in animals. Lithium injected into guinea pigs made them lethargic and less susceptible to stimuli. Cade then tested the effect of orally administered lithium preparations in patients with mental diseases and observed improvements in manic- depressed patients. In spite of side effects (6,7), lithium therapy was introduced as an effective treatment for acute psychic states of agitation (8–12) when coupled with careful monitoring of the lithium blood level. Experience with lithium therapy of endogenous depression and mania soon showed that the therapeutic range of lithium compounds is very small (13).
