Word: lithium
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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According to Dawson's studies of urine samples from 3,000 Texans, El Paso's water is heavily laced with lithium, a tranquilizing chemical widely used in the treatment of manic depression and other psychiatric disorders. He notes that Dallas, which has low lithium levels because it draws its water from surface supplies, has "about seven times more admissions to state mental hospitals than El Paso." But state mental health officials point out that the mental hospital closest to Dallas is 35 miles from the city, while the one nearest El Paso is 350 miles away...
...statistics show that while Dallas had 5,970 known crimes per 100,000 population last year, El Paso had 2,889 per 100,000. Dallas (pop. 844,000) had 242 murders, El Paso (pop. 323,000) only 13. Dr. Frederick Goodwin, an expert on lithium studies for the National Institute of Mental Health, doubts that "lithium has these magical properties in the population." Others are not so sure. If lithium does have anything to do with the relative peace in El Paso, what would it do for other cities like New York and Chicago...
...first time in long hours, the tired men in Mission Control breathed easier. But the astronauts did not. Houston soon noticed that carbon dioxide exhaled by the astronauts was building up to a dangerous level in the lunar module's atmosphere; lithium hydroxide air purifiers in Aquarius, designed to absorb the potentially lethal gas for only relatively short periods of time, were becoming saturated. The deactivated command module was equipped with more purifiers, but their canisters were not interchangeable with the LM's. Mission Control instructed the astronauts to lead a second hose into the command module and connect...
Researcher Cade could not resist the temptation, as he puts it, of plunging his hand again into the same lucky dip. He tried the salts of other metals closely related to lithium, and drew blanks. Then he turned to strontium, which competes with calcium in many vital biochemical processes and is some how involved in the body's handling of another trace element, magnesium. Again Cade picked the carbonate form as the least likely to upset the stomach. He recently told colleagues that he has tried it on himself and noted "a distinct tranquilizing effect," though he considers himself...
...longer an unknown psychiatrist, Dr. Cade is in the U.S. this week to speak in Baltimore at a Taylor Manor Hospital symposium on discoveries in biological psychiatry. There he will suggest that other psychiatrists investigate strontium carbonate, to establish whether in this, as in lithium carbonate, he has found a common chemical to be a useful drug...