Early North American research on lithium

Abstract

Research and clinical interest in lithium in the USA lagged behind that in Europe, largely because of the experience of deaths due to lithium in cardiac patients. The first American report on lithium was published in 1960 by Sam Gershon, the Australian psychiatrist who had undertaken lithium studies in Melbourne in conjunction with the physiologist Trautner. Major USA clinical trials originated in the 1960s; and the clinical significance of lithium was recognised in a special section in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 1968. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of lithium for control of manic episodes was finally given in 1970.