LSD: My Problem Child—Reflections on Sacred Drugs, Mysticism, and Science
JAMA December 9, 1983 DOI: 10.1001/jama.1983.03340220075044 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | LSD Mysticism |
| Keywords | Psychic Psychoanalysis Art history |
| Citations | 73 |
| Key points | Describes how Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered the psychoactive effects of LSD-25 in 1943 while working at Sandoz. |
Abstract
Along with watches and cuckoo clocks, the Swiss produce drugs. They have been doing it for a long time— since Paracelsus of Basel, a contemporary of Columbus. On April 16, 1943, another Basel chemist, Albert Hofmann, was working in his laboratory at Sandoz. His specialty was ergot, a fungus that grows on grains. Starting with lysergic acid, the ergot nucleus, Hofmann had synthesized several medically useful drugs that made Sandoz a great deal of money. On this fateful day, while working with the 25th substance in his series of lysergic acid derivatives (LSD-25), Hofmann began to feel odd. "I sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition," he writes, and perceived an "uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors." Unwittingly, not knowing how he had absorbed the stuff, Hofmann had just taken the first LSD trip. Sandoz, alas, would not make a franc. Later Hofmann