Finding Sanity (Paperback)

Greg de Moore

ISBN 10: 1760113700 / ISBN 13: 9781760113704

Published by Allen & Unwin, St Leonards, 2016

About this Item

Paperback. For most of human history, mental illness has been largely untreatable. Sufferers lived their lives - if they survived - in and out of asylums, accumulating life's wreckage around them.In 1948, all that changed when an Australian doctor and recently returned prisoner of war, working alone in a disused kitchen, set about an experimental treatment for one of the scourges of mankind - manic depression, or bipolar disorder. That doctor was John Cade and in that small kitchen he stirred up a miracle.John Cade discovered a treatment that has become the gold standard for bipolar disorder - lithium. It has stopped more people from committing suicide than a thousand help lines.Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health - the first effective medication discovered for the treatment of a mental illness - and it is, without doubt, Australia's greatest mental health story. The first biography of the ground breaking Australian doctor who discovered the first pharmacological treatment for mental illness. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781760113704

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Finding Sanity (Paperback)
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin, St Leonards
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1760113700
• ISBN 13: 9781760113704
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

In 1948, there was no medication for bipolar illness. Sufferers from the illness would live their lives—if they survived—in and out of asylums accumulating life's wreckage around them. But late in 1948 that changed, when an Australian doctor, John Cade, discovered a treatment that has become the gold standard for bipolar illness—lithium. John Cade changed the course of medicine with his discovery of lithium; yet today most doctors have never heard of his name. His discovery has stopped more people from committing suicide than a thousand help lines, yet few counselors know of him. And it has saved hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs—enough to rival a nation's economy—but you can bet that no politician has the slightest idea of who John Cade was. Lithium is the penicillin story of mental health; the first effective medication discovered for the treatment of a mental illness; and a great story in the history of mental health.

About the Author

Greg de Moore is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry based at Sydney's Westmead Hospital. He is the author of Tom Wills, which was short-listed for and won numerous awards, including the National Biography Award. Ann Westmore is an Honorary Fellow in the Health Humanities and Social Science Unit, School of Population and Global Health, the University of Melbourne.