Late one October afternoon in 1984, I left the grey London drizzle behind and took off on a flight bound for Aarhus, major city on the east coast of Jutland, Denmark.

Within twenty minutes the jet, appropriately called a Viking, had climbed above the turbulence of the clouds and was cruising through a serene dimension poised somewhere between the night sky, the sunset, and the purple rainclouds far below. Such a passage from turbulence into even stability is. I reflected, a familiar experience to the hundreds of thousands of people who have now benefited from tithium all over the world. But the introduction and acceptance of lithium therapy have been far from smooth, and would perhaps not have been possible at all were it not for the commitment and persistence of a few dedicated individuals.

Section 58 of the Mental Health Act 1983 provides for statutory control of certain treatments given to detained patients through an obligation to obtain their consent or secure the approval of a doctor called as a second opinion through the Regional Office of the Mental Health Act Commission.

Although the Academic Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry of the University of Glasgow came into being with the establishment of a Chair only in 1977, the subject had been taught to medical undergraduates since the early 60s. This was possible, even without a formal academic base, because of the long-established Scottish tradition that NHS consultants and their junior medical staff accept as a matter of course, and usually as something of a privilege, to participate in the teaching of medical students. As the Department of Child and Family Psychiatry was based in the main paediatric teaching hospital at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, it was a natural development that this should also be the location for the teaching of the specialty, and throughout its development in Glasgow this course has been a part of the final year block placement of undergraduates for instruction in child health and paediatrics. Over the years there has also been some participation in the lecture course in general psychiatry which takes place in the fourth year of undergraduate study.