Anne Skyvington
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • Craft
      • Structuring a Short Story
      • Alternative Narrative Approaches
      • Genre in Writing
      • A Grain of Folly
        • Novel Writing
          • The Sea Voyage: a metaphor
          • How I Created My Debut Novel
          • What I learnt from writing a novel…
          • Short Story
            • At the Swimming Pool
            • The Night of the Barricades
          • Poetry
            • a funny thing happened …
            • An ancient mystic: Rumi
            • A Window into Poetry
            • The Voice of T.S. Eliot
  • Publishing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • A Perfect Pitch to a Publisher
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
  • Book Reviews
    • A Story of a Special Child
    • Discovering Karrana
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • The Trouble With Flying: A Review
  • Mythos
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Births Deaths and Marriages
    • Duality or Onenness: The Moon
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
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Emotions and HealthExistence

John Cade and Australia’s Greatest Mental Health Story

written by Anne Skyvington August 8, 2017
bird-rising-pond

john-cade-biographyIt can be said that  John Cade “discovered” lithium, in the sense that he actually identified this substance that would become the chemical that would help many in the manic-depressive (bipolar) community.

One of the best biographies I read last year was Finding Sanity by Greg de Moore and Ann Westmore, published by Allen&Unwin in 2016. This is a biography, not a memoir, as it explores the life of Doctor John Cade in detail, starting with that of his parents, and delving into his own family life spent (he, as caretaker and psychiatrist) in asylums in country Victoria during the 1940s.

John Cade is the  Australian who discovered, in the fourth decade of the twentieth century, a simple treatment for severe manic illness: LITHIUM. This treatment was already used as a cure by ancient Greek doctors before the element had been identified scientifically. Soranus of Ephesus and others ordered salt baths containing high levels of lithium for excitable patients.  Today it has become the gold standard for treating bipolar disorder and saving and supporting lives.  Cade changed the course of  medicine and saved millions of unwell mental illness patients from suffering, not to mention saving governments billions of dollars in health costs. Strangely enough, not many doctors or politicians appear to know about him and his story today.

To quote from the first pages of the biography, “Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health … and Australia’s greatest mental health story.”

In 1920, after his father David Cade returned from fighting in Gallipoli and France, he and his young family settled into a doctor’s cottage in the grounds of a Victorian country asylum there. The younger Cade followed his father into a medical career, also choosing to specialise in psychiatry.  After he returned from Changi, where he was imprisoned in a hellish camp by the Japanese, he was anxious to catch up on lost time, and threw himself into work.  His work was helping the mentally ill and experimenting with new treatments.  This was a time when manic depression either went untreated, or cures were attempted through crude, early forms of lobotomies and electric shock treatment. His was the first effective medication to treat a mental illness, and in the form of a cheap and natural mineral salt.

john-cade-and-dog-at-bundoora

John Cade at Bundoora

Cade tested his theories by injecting uric acid from his manic patients into guinea pigs. Unfortunately, all of the animals died. To prevent this, he used lithium urate, which was highly soluble, to see if urea was, indeed, the culprit in causing mania. To Cade’s surprise, he found this produced a calming effect in the guinea pigs, instead of increased excitation.

Through a series of very careful experiments on both guinea pigs and, later on, people, it was proven that lithium had a pronounced effect on mania. This wonderful discovery was quickly followed by the finding that lithium also helped with the depressive symptoms of bipolar.

Cade’s remarkably successful results were detailed in his paper, Lithium salts in the treatment of psychotic excitement, published in the Medical Journal of Australia (1949).

The significance of what John Cade achieved is hard to overestimate.

quote-depression-john-cade

 

 

John Cade and Australia’s Greatest Mental Health Story was last modified: July 7th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
how did john cade prove his findings in relation to lithium?the difference between a memoir and a biographywho discovered the value of lithium as a treatment?who were the first doctors to use lithium as a treatment?
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Anne Skyvington

I have been a reader/writer all of my life as far back as I can remember. Blogging has opened me up to another world, where I can share my skills and continue to create through word and picture. Writing is about seeing the world and recreating it for others to see through different eyes.

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About The Author

Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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