John Frederick Joseph Cade: Family Memories on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of his Discovery of the Use of Lithium in Mania

Abstract

When John Cade was born in 1912, in the small Victorian country town of Murtoa, his future professional field was also in its infancy, if indeed it had been truly born at all. There were of course larg e lunatic asylums occupying prime real estate in Melbourne and grand sites in the country, but these functioned primarily as custodial institutions rather than as hospitals offering treatment, for in general there was no effective therapy for the major mental illnesses. But living many of his younger years within the grounds of these impressive institutions, since his father was for many years medical superintendent at several of these hospitals (Beechworth, Sunbury, Mont Park), was to have a major bearing on his later deep understanding of the needs of the mentally ill.John Cade was still a small boy when his father, David, left for World War I, for Gallipoli and later France, returning in 1919 a Colonel with a DSO (Distinguished Service Order) but with severe physical and mental exhaustion referred to at the time as 'war weariness'. During the war, the family (John's mother, Ellen, John himself, and his two younger brothers, David and Frank) had lived in the peaceful Dandenongs, and the main memory of that time was that his mother bought from a door-to-door salesman a block of land at St Leonards which turned out to be underwater. After the war, the family returned to Murtoa, but his war-weary father became increasingly exhausted treating the large number of his patients in the influenza pandemic of the time. He, therefore, sold his general practice and gratefully accepted a position with the Mental Hygiene Department, in which he worked in three of the major mental hospitals over the next 25 years.

Chronic Lithium Chloride Administration Attenuates Brain NMDA Receptor-Initiated Signaling via Arachidonic Acid in Unanesthetized Rats

“…Lithium (Li + ) has been used to treat bipolar disorder (BD) for about 50 years, but its mechanism of action is not agreed on (Barchas et al, 1994;Cade, 1999). One suggestion has been that it acts in part by inhibiting glutamatergic neurotransmission, particularly via N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors (NMDARs) (Bauer et al, 2003;Farber et al, 2002;Krystal et al, 2002;Stewart and Reid, 2002;Zarate et al, 2003).…”

Chronic Lithium Salt Treatment Reduces CRE/CREB-Directed Gene Transcription and Reverses Its Upregulation by Chronic Psychosocial Stress in Transgenic Reporter Gene Mice

“…Among the drugs recommended for the treatment of bipolar disorder, lithium salts are of prime importance (Gitlin, 2006). Lithium has been discovered more than 50 years ago as a drug with an acute antimanic action (Cade, 1999). More importantly, lithium is highly effective in preventing the relapse of manic and depressive episodes.…”

Chronic Lithium Administration to Rats Selectively Modifies 5-HT2A/2C Receptor-Mediated Brain Signaling Via Arachidonic Acid

“…Lithium has been used to treat bipolar disorder for about 50 years, but its mechanism of action is not agreed on (Barchas et al, 1994;Cade, 1999). One suggestion is that it modifies neurotransmission imbalances that contribute to the disease (Bymaster and Felder, 2002;Janowsky and Overstreet, 1995).…”