Finding Sanity: John Cade, lithium and the taming of bipolar disorder

Greg de Moore · Ann Westmore

Feb 2017 · Bolinda · Narrated by Paul English

About this audiobook

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.

Ratings and reviews

Perfectly read. An excellent portrait of Cade and the best of the Australian character. A real life Sherlock Holmes with a gift for observation, compassion, discernment and humour. He loved his mentally ill patients and treated them as people.

About the author

Greg de Moore is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry based at Sydney's Westmead Hospital. Born in Melbourne of parents who migrated to Australia from Sri Lanka, Greg has lived in Sydney for over 20 years. Outside of the hospital he has combined his medical interests with Australian history to write and co-write two previous books – Tom Wills and A National Game.

Ann Westmore is an Honorary Fellow in the Health Humanities and Social Science Unit, School of Population and Global Health, the University of Melbourne. After completing a Master of Science in the history and philosophy of science, Ann completed a PhD titled 'Mind, Mania and Science: Psychiatry and the Culture of Experiment in Mid-Twentieth Century Victoria'. Her thesis gave rise to work with Museum Victoria and the University of Melbourne investigating nineteenth and twentieth century mental health care in Australia.

Paul English is an actor and narrator based in Melbourne who has appeared in more than 40 productions with major Australian theatre companies. Some highlights include Shakespeare's Hamlet, Chekhov’s Ivanov and Stoppard's Arcadia. Paul's television credits include SeaChange, Curtin and Gallipoli. His narration of Mao's Last Dancer (2004) and Coming Rain (2017) have both won AudioFile Earphones Awards.