Lithium was first used in the 19th century as a treatment for gout after scientists discovered that, at least in the laboratory, lithium could dissolve uric acid crystals isolated from the kidneys. The levels of lithium needed to dissolve urate in the body, however, were toxic. Because of prevalent theories linking excess uric acid to a range of disorders, including depressive and manic disorders, Carl Lange in Denmark and William Alexander Hammond in New York City used lithium to treat mania from the 1870s onwards.
By the turn of the 20th century, as theory regarding mood disorders evolved and so-called "brain gout" disappeared as a medical entity, the use of lithium in psychiatry was largely abandoned; however, a number of lithium preparations were still produced for the control of renal calculi and uric acid diathesis. As accumulating knowledge indicated a role for excess sodium intake in hypertension and heart disease, lithium salts were prescribed to patients for use as a replacement for dietary table salt (sodium chloride). This practice and the sale of lithium itself were both banned in the United States in February 1949, following publication of reports detailing side effects and deaths.
Also in 1949, the Australian psychiatrist John Cade and Australian biochemist Shirley Andrews rediscovered the usefulness of lithium salts in treating mania while working at the Royal Park Psychiatric Hospital in Victoria. They were injecting rodents with urine extracts taken from manic patients in an attempt to isolate a metabolic compound which might be causing mental symptoms. Since uric acid in gout was known to be psychoactive, (adenosine receptors on neurons are stimulated by it; caffeine blocks them), they needed soluble urate for a control. They used lithium urate, already known to be the most soluble urate compound, and observed that it caused the rodents to become tranquil. Cade and Andrews traced the effect to the lithium ion itself, and after Cade ingested lithium himself to ensure its safety in humans, he proposed lithium salts as tranquilizers. He soon succeeded in controlling mania in chronically hospitalized patients with them. This was one of the first successful applications of a drug to treat mental illness, and it opened the door for the development of medicines for other mental problems in the next decades.
The rest of the world was slow to adopt this treatment, largely because of deaths which resulted from even relatively minor overdosing, including those reported from use of lithium chloride as a substitute for table salt. Largely through the research and other efforts of Denmark's Mogens Schou and Paul Baastrup in Europe, and Samuel Gershon and Baron Shopsin in the U.S., this resistance was slowly overcome. Following the recommendation of the APA Lithium Task Force (William Bunney, Irvin Cohen (Chair), Jonathan Cole, Ronald R. Fieve, Samuel Gershon, Robert Prien, and Joseph Tupin), the application of lithium in manic illness was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in 1970, becoming the 50th nation to do so. In 1974, this application was extended to its use as a preventive agent for manic-depressive illness.
Fieve, who had opened the first lithium clinic in North America in 1966, helped popularize the psychiatric use of lithium through his national TV appearances and his bestselling book, Moodswing. In addition, Fieve and David L. Dunner developed the concept of "rapid cycling" bipolar disorder based on non-response to lithium.
Lithium has now become a part of Western popular culture. Characters in Pi,  Premonition, Stardust Memories,  American Psycho, Garden State, and An Unmarried Woman all take lithium. Its the chief constituent of the calming drug in Ira Levins dystopian This Perfect Day. Sirius XM Satellite Radio in North America has a 1990s alternative rock station called Lithium, and several songs refer to the use of lithium as a mood stabilizer. These include: "Equilibrium met Lithium" by South African artist Koos Kombuis, "Lithium" by Evanescence, "Lithium" by Nirvana, "Lithium and a Lover" by Sirenia, "Lithium Sunset", from the album Mercury Falling by Sting, and "Lithium" by Thin White Rope.