Finding Sanity: John Cade, Lithium and the Taming of Bipolar Disorder by Greg De Moore and Ann Westmore

Abstract

124 BOOK REVIEWS torn Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, who were being welcomed, not deported. For all its strengths, the book has two notable Àaws. One is the text of the ‘feature’ pages, printed in sepia and a thin font on paper of varied hues—clay, caramel, old gold, khaki—designed to evoke the colours of sandstone, but instead making these pages dif¿cult to read. This is a pity, since they offer interesting archaeological details: the sepia should have been a little darker. The other Àaw is the book’s extremely skimpy documentation: lists of a dozen or so published works for each chapter, and a short note on the various collections housing unpublished records. ‘For the sake of brevity and the smooth Àow of the writing’, the authors explain (p.290), ‘we have provided details only for published works directly cited in the text’. Sometimes several more such works are listed besides those directly cited. But the hapless reader is left wondering where on earth the many letters, diaries and memoirs quoted in the text can be found. Without disrupting the ‘Àow’ or distracting the eye, an occasional endnote would have allowed at least the whereabouts of each such source to be indicated. Drawbacks aside, Stories from the Sandstone is a most impressive work: full of fascinating tales, exhaustively researched and eloquently told, each one woven into the fabric of this country’s history. Together, these and their accompanying illustrations bring vividly to life the extraordinary place that was for so long the North Head Quarantine Station. ANTHEA HYSLOP MELBOURNE Greg De Moore and Ann Westmore, Finding Sanity: John Cade, Lithium and the Taming of Bipolar Disorder (Crows Nest, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2016). ISBN: 978-1-76011-370-4 (PB). B&W and colour illustrations. ix + 324pp. Lithium remains a somewhat controversial drug in the practice of psychiatry. However, there can be no doubt that its use revolutionised the treatment and management of patients suffering from bipolar disorder, once known as manic depression. The man who recognised lithium’s potential was John Cade of Melbourne. This excellent Health & History Ɣ 19/1 Ɣ 2017 125 book is an acknowledgement of his life and of his contribution to the advance of medical knowledge. John Cade came from a long line of medical professionals, the family having migrated from Britain to Victoria in the 1840s. John’s father, David, was a psychiatrist, and John himself specialised in the same discipline after he quali¿ed in medicine from the University of Melbourne. In 1937 he married Jean Charles and they had two small children by the time he enlisted in the army in 1940. His¿eld ambulance was sent to Singapore in early 1941 and when the Japanese invaded Malaya the following year, John became a prisonerof -war and spent the next three-and-a-half years in the notorious prison camp, Changi. During these years, John, and other Australian doctors, tried, as much as they were able, to shield their men from ‘Japanese brutality’ and their care for their fellow prisoners helped many survive the extraordinarily harsh conditions. One particular responsibility which the Japanese forced on John, was to vet suitable men to work in labour camps; the memory of this task never left him for the rest of his life. Whilst working as a general medical of¿cer in Changi, he thought it was possible that psychiatric illnesses could be caused by medical conditions and could, perhaps, be precipitated by some chemical imbalances in the body. On his return to Melbourne, Cade resumed his profession as a psychiatrist working at Bundoora Repatriation Hospital, where he soon became superintendent. Cade was particularly concerned about the lack of drug treatment available for patients with manic depression. His thoughts returned to his long-held concept of the possible inÀuence of abnormal chemicals in the blood of these patients and he decided to look ¿rst at substances in their urine. He began by injecting the urine of patients, with different psychiatric diagnoses, into guinea pigs to see if there were any different responses. There were not, as all the guinea pigs died! He then looked at the chemicals in the urine and decided that urea or uric acid could...