John Cade

John Frederick Joseph Cade AO was an Australian psychiatrist who in 1948 discovered the effects of lithium as a mood stabilizer in the treatment of bipolar disorder, then known as manic depression. At a time when the standard treatments for mania were electroconvulsive therapy and lobotomy, lithium had the distinction of being the first effective medication available to treat a mental illness. Cade's discovery in 1948 began a revolution in psychopharmacology.