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A Child's Story -- 2 |
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In the spring of 1943, Hofmann received "a peculiar presentiment." He felt that LSD-25 might possess properties other than those observed in Sandoz' initial investigation. He therefore set about resynthesizing this substance, intending to resubmit it to Sandoz' pharmacological department for further examination. That was "in a way uncommon," he wrote in his autobiography, "for experimental substances were as a rule definitely stricken from the research program, if they were once found uninteresting from the pharmacological aspect." |
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In the course of recrystallizing "only a few centigrams" (hundredths of a gram) for analysis, a strange thing happened to Dr. Hofmann:
"I suddenly became strangely inebriated. The external world became changed as in a dream. Objects appeared to gain in relief; they assumed unusual dimensions; and colors became more glowing. Even self-perception and the sense of time were changed. When the eyes were closed, there surged upon me an uninterrupted stream of fantastic images of extraordinary plasticity and vividness and accompanied by an intense, kaleidoscope-like play of colors. After about two hours, the not unpleasant inebriation, which had been experienced whilst I was fully conscious, disappeared." |
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Hofmann's was the first human experience of LSD, an accident that would never have occurred under careful laboratory conditions. "It was possible that a drop had fallen on my fingers and had been absorbed by the skin." One drop. |
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The most powerful psychedelic agent known at that time was mescaline. To receive a psychedelic effect, the average human body has to absorb a third of a gram or more of mescaline. However, LSD is about four thousand times as strong as mescaline. A drop on his skin was enough -- perhaps 20-50 micrograms (millionths of a gram, abbreviated mcg.) -- to give Hofmann a light trip lasting noticeably for two hours. If LSD were only a thousand times as strong as mescaline, Hofmann would probably not have felt its mental effects. |
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But he did notice. Three days later he resolved to apply methodical analysis to his accidental discovery. |
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A cautious man, Hofmann started by ingesting a quarter of a milligram (250 mcg.), intending to increase the dosage as necessary to complete a full description of the effects of the drug. That at least was his intention. |
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Forty minutes after administration of the conservative first dose, less than fifty words along in his efforts to record observations, came a far more powerful reaction: the first intentional human experience of LSD. Hofmann was unable to continue his description in the lab notebook as "the last words could only be written with great difficulty":
"I asked my laboratory assistant to accompany me home as I believed that my condition would be a repetition of the disturbance of the previous Friday. While we were still cycling home, however, it became clear that the symptoms were much stronger than the first time. I had great difficulty in speaking coherently, my field of vision swayed before me, and objects appeared distorted like the images in curved mirrors. I had the impression of being unable to move from the spot, although my assistant told me afterwards that we had cycled at a good pace . . ."
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