[Experience with the use of lithium salts in the treatment of chronic alcoholism].

Lithium salts were given to 88 patients with chronic alcoholism and affective disorders in the clinical picture (32 of the patients received lithium for more than 3 months). Positive results were seen in those cases where pathology of the affective sphere was marked in the premorbid period of alcoholism and was only aggravated in the formation of alcoholism. The absence of any affect was found in those cases where affective disorders first appeared at the remote stages of alcoholism (II-III and III stages). About in 1/3 of the cases there were side-effects, more frequently in the form of dyspeptical disorders.