'Lithium' Is A Homage To A Drug — And To The Renegade Side Of Science

Like any good story about a scientific discovery, Walter A. Brown's account of the history of lithium features plenty of improvisation, conjecture and straight-up kismet.

Unlike many such stories, though, it also features a fair share of personal bias, senseless puttering and random speculation — on part of these scientific researchers.

Brown, a practicing psychiatrist and university professor of more than 40 years, seems to have been drawn to write Lithium: A Doctor, A Drug and a Breakthrough as much because of lithium's fluky history and overlooked importance (for many years, he argues, it was "the Cinderella of psychiatric drugs") as by the profound impact it's had on countless sufferers of bipolar disorder and depression.