ABSTRACT
History ■ Lithium is an alkaline metal element that occurs naturally as the min-
eral petalite. It is widely used today in swimming pool filters and batteries for mobile phones and computers.
■ The Australian psychiatrist John Cade first proposed the use of lithium salts to treat ‘psychotic excitement’ in 1949, although its sedative and depressant properties had been known since at least the preceding century, and possibly since antiquity.
