HALLUCINATING SUBSTANCES

THE PROBLEM OF SENSE-ILLUSIONS
Normal conscious life consists of an interrupted chain of correctly interpreted perceptions, called forth by external or internal excitations. The perceptions and sensations are subjected to the judgment of habit which generally admits of a real or probable relationship between the impression experienced and the real internal or external world. But it is plain, without further explanations, that this judgment, which is based upon the argument from habit, may be false. The attribution of a received sense-perception to a supposed cause is liable to error. Such errors of judgment become most apparent in the case of the interpretation of processes which have no external cause, but have their source in the human organism itself, and take place in the nervous system, especially the sensory nerves and their branches in the brain.
The most exact and exhaustive philosophical and psychological researches into the problem of sense-impressions caused by internal processes have found no way to explain the appearance and the correct or erroneous interpretation of an impression which has its source in a branch of the nerves. Yet this problem is of great consequence in real life. It extends not only to pathology but also into the life of persons whom we cannot call pathological. Are not "internal visions," subjectively considered, real happenings which he who experiences such inward perceptions may regard as true? That is my own view.

When the prophet Ezekiel states that "the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God, . . . a great cloud, and a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures . . . Their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps . . . as for their rings, they were so high that they were dreadful; and their rings were full of eyes round about them four," or "above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it," or that he heard "the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, . . . as the noise of an host," we must inquire into the cause of such internal visions and perceptions, which in other forms also have for thousands of years been recorded by persons who were vitally healthy, mentally sane and at the same time fully conscious of themselves. In other words: have visions and hallucinations a material cause? Yes, in my opinion. The nature of the cause need not always be the same, but it is always an excitation localized in the interior of the body. It is present in the state of ecstasy and inspiration, when the person attains the highest concentration of his internal forces on sensation and representation, and his mental activity is at its maximum as well as in the sense-aberrations of subjects with an abnormal mentality. In cases of the former kind there is no need for believers, among whom I number myself, to doubt the divine inspiration.
It is in such an ecstasy, which eliminates the sense-life of the external world where emotion is plastic and real, that Faust, "seeking with his soul," cries:

The heavens arch over me—the moon hides her light—the lamp disappears! Vapours arise! Red rays flash round my head. A quivering whisper blows down from the valult and makes me shudder! I feel it, thou hoverest near me, the spirit I implored. Unveil thyself!

Even is we consider this state as a hallucination of vision and perception, that is to say as a negation of reality, it conveys a real and plastic life of the soul, like the religious visions of Benvenuto Cellini when imprisoned in the dungeons of St. Angelo, and other which have been described in times past on the part of many other individuals, saints and others, the so-called visionaries.
I assume that a material cause originating in the sexual sphere influenced those female visionaries who in the Middle Ages and later achieved notoriety through their singular behaviour, for instance Christine Ebner, who gave rise to much criticism at the end of the thirteenth century. From her fourteenth year onwards she had visions and dreams accompanied by excitation. She felt that she had conceived of the Holy Ghost, gave birth to Jesus, suckled him, and enjoyed his caresses when he grew to manhood. Under conditions unknown to us the human body is able, without the aid of bacteria, to produce substances about which we in our days are only beginning to surmise—substances endowed with the property of producing intermediary states between health and sickness, or even genuine disease, including abscesses and mental disorder.
I have defined disease as the result of the effect of foreign influences.' Visionary states are likewise, in my view, generally temporarily limited intermediate and transitory states caused by substances produced in the organism. The action of these substances brings about in the individual subjectively felt realities, which should not be subject to the reproach of fraud or untruthfulness, such as Meister Eckhart, the greatest representative of fourteenth century mysticism, laid to the charge of visionaries:
If it is said that our Lord from time to time speaks with good people, and that they hear words, such as in some cases: Thou art of the elect, I have chosen thee, and so on, such words must henceforth not be believed.
If, in order to investigate how these internally caused perceptions appear and to which cause we must attribute them—false projection of ideas, unreal happenings or non-existent objects—we limit the problem to what we can actually observe, we are immediately faced with a tangible cause to which psychologists and alienists ignorant of the facts have paid little attention, and which for this reason has not been followed out to its final consequences—I mean the action of chemical substances capable of evoking such transitory states without any perfectly normal mentality who are partly or fully conscious of the action of the drug. Substances of this nature I call Phantastica. They are capable of exercising their chemical power on all the sense, but they influence particularly the visual and auditory sphere as well as the general sensibility. Their study promises one day to be of great profit for the understanding of the mental states above mentioned. Many years ago I indicated the part played by chemical substances of another kind in the appearance of mental disturbances of some duration, and very recently in the case of a gas, carbon monoxide, I pointed out briefly how genuine permanent mental diseases may be produced by a disturbance, as the issue of my own investigations in the sphere of the hallucinants or Phantastica shows.
The problem is as follows. Taking for granted what we know of the Phantastica and of their action as chemical substances on the brain in the form of sensorial illusions, may we go further, and suppose that in those cases where hallucinations and visions transitorily appear in perfectly sane persons they are due to the chemical action of bodies produced for some reason in the human organism itself? We may presume that there is a certain mental predisposition present at the time. We may base our affirmative response on facts. I know of organic products of disintegration which actually cause temporary excitation of certain points of the brain. I know of others which bring about somnolence and sleep and even mental disorders. Even if other causes are brought forward to explain hallucinations, if they are interpreted as the consequence of the excitation of certain central nerves, all these interpretations do not exclude the possibility of the chemical action of certain bodies produced in the organism being the direct cause of the excitation and the indirect cause of the series of consequences.
The importance of the Phantastica or Hallucinatoria extends to the sphere of physiological, semi-physiological and pathological processes. It throws light on the concept of excitation, not easily accessible by science, on which so many strange manifestations of the cerebral functions are founded, by giving it an explanation without which it would be void, an explanation which accounts for the various effects by the chemical action of chemical substances produced in the organism itself. An objection to this point of view should not be found in the rapid appearance and eventual rapid cessation of the phenomena and the restitution of normal sense-perceptions. There are many chemical and especially chemico-catalytic reactions which develop in the same manner. I am convinced that it is the chemical action of organic decomposition-products which causes the hallucinations so frequently met with in febrile diseases, hallucinations which the patient shows in such abundance and such a variety of forms even when he has not completely lost consciousness. If any light is ever to be shed on the almost absolute darkness which envelopes these cerebral processes, then such light will only originate from chemistry, and never from morphological research. Morphology indeed has succeeded hitherto in giving but few explanations of vital processes. It has given no explanation of the extremely delicate action of certain chemical substances on living beings, especially on their nervous system, and will in all probability remain equally sterile in the future.
The point of view here put forward does not pretend to be the only one applicable to know processes of life. Others assume, in my opinion with equal justification, that a religious impulse, for instance, a truly divine emotion which makes the soul vibrate in its most profound depths, may be transmitted as a wave of excitation, and may influence centres which call forth internal impressions, false perceptions, hallucinations, etc. I know from events of everyday life' that very violent emotions may under certain favourable conditions give rise to certain changes in the cerebral functions. These emotions are not only such as may be considered as aberrations of the intelligence, fear, anguish, fright, horror, but also the repulsive instincts such as disgust, loathing, abhorrence. The disorders of the brain which these sensations evoke are most various, collapse, delirium, convulsive trembling, troubles of the vascular system, etc. They may even terminate in death through the secondary reactions of vital organs. These consequences certainly appear more frequently than is supposed, but the mechanism to which they are to be traced is extremely difficult to perceive.
It was once thought, in order to explain the incomprehensibly sudden fatal action of prussic acid, that mere contact with the mucous membrane of the mouth, for example, is sufficient to produce a "dynamic effect" similar to the production of light and darkness when an electric current is switched on or turned off. How the poison could be absorbed, conducted to the brain and have time to act so rapidly as to explain the extremely sudden death could not be imagined. This conception has proven to be erroneous since prussic acid, in spite of the great rapidity of its deadly effect, has been traced in the brain. I mention this fact because it throws light on the wide difference between the two theories explaining the appearance of abnormal activities in the brain.
The following pages will also show how Phantastica as miraculous thaumatrugic agents combined with religious and superstitious ideas have been highly esteemed and utilized in past days, and are still so used by some people at the present time. This we can understand when we know their properties, the properties of evoking sense-illusions in a great variety of forms, of giving rise in the human soul as if by magic to apparitions whose brilliant, seductive, perpetually changing aspects produce a rapture which is incessantly renewed and in comparison with which the perceptions of consciousness are but pale shadows. Harmonious vibrations of sounds beyond all human belief are heard, phantasms appear before men's eyes as if they were real, always desired but never attained, offered to them as a gift from almighty God. These properties explain why many of these substances have been and are used for illegal purposes.'

ANHALONIUM LEWINII

History of the Plant
"The Teochichimekas (the genuine Chichimekas) know herbs and roots, their properties and their effects. They also know of peyotl. Those who eat peyotl take it instead of wine, as well as the poisonous mushroom nanacatl. They assemble somewhere in the prairie, dance and sing all day and all night. The next day they meet again and weep to excess. With their tears they wash their eyes and clear their brains ( i.e. return to reason, see clearly again . . . The plant peyotl, a kind of earth nopal, is white, grows in the northern parts, and produces in those who eat or drink it terrible or ludicrous visions. This inebriety lasts two to three days and then disappears. The Chichimekas eat considerable amounts of the plant. It gives them strength, incites them to battle, alleviates fear, and they feel neither hunger nor thirst. It is even said that they are protected from every kind of danger."
This quotation is taken from Sahagun,4 the principal Mexican chronicler, who first mentioned peyotl in his works about forty years after the conquest of Mexico by Fernando Cortez. The naturalist Hernandez, who lived in the reign of Philip II, and had seen the plant, but only pointed out as characteristic the striking white silky pappus,5 had heard that those who ate its root could predict the attacks of enemies and their future fortune, or reveal the hiding place of stolen goods.' In more recent religious works it is stated that the Church attributed diabolic properties to the magic effects of peyotl and urged the priests to make inquiries about it in the confessional. Hence the book of Father Nicolas de Leon, Camino del cielo, "the Road to Heaven," contains the following questions for the priest to ask the penitent: "Are you a fortune-teller? Do you predict future events by reading omens, explaining dreams, or tracing circles and figures in water? Do you adorn with flowers places where idols are kept? Do you know of magic formulas which bring luck to the hunter or make rain fall? Do you suck the blood of others? Do you go about at night to invoke the aid of demons? Have you taken peyotl or given it to others to drink in order to discover secrets or the whereabouts of stolen or lost property?" Another work' contains the following reply of an Indian to a question during confession: "I have believed in dreams, in magic herbs, in peyotl and in ololiuhqui, in the owl . . . etc."
Until 1886 nothing was known as to the nature and character of this substance. At this time the plant came into my possession during my travels in America. Hennings, of the botanical Museum of Berlin, recognized it as a new species of anhalonium. It received the name anhalonium lewinii. My first examinations' of the plant proved that it contained alkaloid substances, especially a crystallized alkaloid called by me anhalonine, which has, like the plant itself, extremely strong excitant properties capable of provoking muscular cramp in animals. As a result of experiments nothing was learnt of the processes of excitation in the sensitive and sensorial sphere, but it was proved for the first time that there was in the family of the cactuses, hitherto regarded as biologically harmless, a species possessing considerable and general toxic properties.
This discovery and others which followed excited a lively interest in the application of anhalonium as a narcotic. They gave rise to subsequent researches, of which the chemical and biological investigations proved very valuable, whereas the flood of botanical research was with a few exceptions unproductive. I myself obtained from the ripe seeds of my specimens the first plants of a nhalonium lewinii henn. , and had them examined by experts.' It is botanically related to anhalonium williamsi but differs from this morphologically and to a greater extent chemically. Anhalonium lewinii contains four alkaloids, among them the vision-producing mescaline, whereas anhalonium williamsi contains only one, Pellotine,w which is free from such properties. This fact alone should suffice to differentiate the two."

Its Uses
Like the poppy, this anhalonium towers above the rest of known plants on account of the special character of its effects on man. No other plant brings about such marvelous functional modifications of the brain. Whereas the poppy gradually detaches the soul and the body with it from all terrestrial sensations and is capable of leading them gently to the threshold of death and setting them free, a consolation and a blessing for all those who are wearied and tormented by life, anhalonium procures for those who make use of it, by its peculiar excitation, pleasures of a special kind. Even if these sensations merely take the form of sensorial phantasms, or of an extreme concentration of the inner life, they are of such a special nature and so superior to reality, so unimaginable, that the victim believes himself transported to a new world of sensibility and intelligence. It is easy to understand why the Indians of old time venerated this plant as a god12 and looked on it as the vegetable incarnation of a divinity."
The use of the drug has now lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, over rather a limited area, it is true, and will continue to do so in spite of the regulations of Governments (the United States of America has prohibited its use) until the plant, which grows in places remote and difficult of access, may perhaps in days to come be exhausted. It is found in the dry plateaus of the north of Mexico in the States of Tamaulipas, San Luis potosi, Queretaro, Jalisco, Aguas Calientes, Zacatecas, Cohahuila, etc. In the north of Cohahuila not far from the railway which now runs through the Eagle Pass along the Rio Grande del norte to Villa Lerdo, there was in 1692 a mission station with the name "El Santo Nombre de Jesus Peyotes," or Pellotes, which still exists as a village. Behind this place rises a chain of hills called Lomerios de Pellotes. The name Peyotes is derived, as the old chronicles state, "de la abundancia en los peyotes." The use of peyotl and the rites which accompanied it were probably know to all the tribes from Arkansas to the valley of Mexico and from the Sierra Madre to the coast, among others from Huicholes, the Tarahumari Indians in the State of Chihuahua, the Indians of Texas, the Mescaleros Apaches, who derive their name from the plant, and the Omaha, Comanches, and Kiowas in the territory of Oklahoma. In every one of their respective idioms the plant has a different name: sefii among the Kiowa, wokowi among the Comanches, ho among the Mescaleros, hikori or hikuli in the Terahumari and Huichole tongue. The merchants of the Indian territories call it Mescal (mescal or muscal buttons), the Mexicans on the Rio Grands peyote, peyotl, pellote. These names all indicate the upper part of the plant anhalonium lewinii.
This consists of dry lumps, of a grey-brown colour and an irregular circular form, approximately 1.5 cm. high and 4 cm. in diameter. They have rugose protuberances, spirally situated, which are covered with thick tufts of whitish-yellow tomentum, and the summit is crowned by a thick and woolly cushion of a dirty white colour. It is probable that other species of anhalonium with a less powerful or different action passed by the name of peyotl. Those who do not themselves collect the plant buy it.
The plant was considered sacred by the aborigines, and was persecuted as a work of the devil by the missionaries who placed the eating of it on the same level as cannibalism. According to Mooney the ceremony of peyotl-eating among the Kiowa lasts from twelve to twenty-four hours. It starts at 9 or 10 o'clock and lasts sometimes till noon the next day. Nowadays the night from Saturday to Sunday is generally devoted to this purpose, in accordance with the white man's view of the Sunday as a holy day and a day of rest. The worshippers sit in a circle round the interior of the sacred tipi with a fire in the middle. At the beginning of the ceremony the leader prays, and then passes four anhaloniums to each man, who rapidly consumes them. He first removes the layer of hairs, chews the cactus, takes the substance from his mouth, rolls it in his hands, and swallows it. Singing and the noise of drums and rattles accompanies the sacred rite.
An Indian from Omaha who had taken part in a sitting of peyotl-eaters states that baptisms are also celebrated with a concoction made by stewing the plant. The novice is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, wherein the anhalonium plays the part of the last-named. The concoction is drunk. It is also used to make signs on the forehead of the novice, who at the same time is fanned with an eagle's wing. This use of anhalonium in religious ceremonies, which can be paralleled in the case of other hallucinating substances, suffices to convey an idea of the tremendous impression it exercises on the unconscious sensibility of man. Torn for some hours from his world of primitive perceptions, material wants and necessities, such an Indian feels himself transported to a world of completely new sensations. He hears, sees, and feels things which, agreeable as they are, must of necessity astonish him because they do not in the least correspond with his ordinary existence and their strangeness must create the impression of supernatural intervention. In this way anhalonium becomes God, as the patient I have already mentioned stated that God was incarnated in cocaine.
The Huichol generally eat peyotl only in December or January during a kind of harvest festival. Starting in September or October special expeditions are organized for gathering it in the high steppes, which generally last forty-three days. All those who participate in this sacred pilgrimage carry a painted tobacco calabash as an emblem of priesthood. During this time they refrain from consuming salt and paprika, and from coition. The gathering of the plant in the appointed place is accompanied by special ceremonies, of which the principal consists in the repeated shooting of arrows to right and left of the plant. During the festival the dry anhalonium is grated and mixed with water, and the resulting thick beverage is handed to the men and women at regular intervals. Then the hallucinatory phenomena appear.

Hallucinations due to Peyotl
In the action of peyotl, as in every case of man's reaction to an influence, one factor must be taken into account as an essential element in the form taken by the reaction: the individuality of the subject. There are no means of foreseeing this form. It is impossible to lift even a corner of the veil that shrouds the physiological process in the diversity of the functional modifications of cerebral life subject to the influence of one of these substances. Hallucinations of vision, such as we shall shortly describe, may be completely absent, and hallucinations of hearing and disorders of the feeling of location in space may take their place. I consider it important that no single component of the plant, mescaline for instance, represents its total action. The other substances present in the anhalonium which in part may act differently co-operate and exercise an influence on the total result.
Influenced by the quantity imbibed—more than 9 gr. have been taken—the effects appear after one to two hours and may last four or more hours. After an injection of mescaline the effects generally last five to seven hours. They come about in darkness or when the eyes are closed, but may also continue if the subject passes into another room.
It is not always possible to distinguish sharply between the different stages. The first phase, generally accompanied by unimportant physical sensations, consists in a kind of removal from earthly cares and the appearance of a purely internal life which excites astonishment. In the second phase appear images of this exclusively internal life, sense-hallucinations, miracles which affect the individual with such energy and force that they appear real. During the greater part of the time they are accompanied by modifications of the spiritual life which are peculiar in that they are felt as gladness of soul or similar sensations, impossible to be expressed in words and quite foreign to the normal state, but nevertheless full of delight. No disagreeable sensations disturb these hours of dream-life. The troubles which are liable to occur in the sense-illusions of certain mental diseases, sensations of fear or disturbances of action, never appear. The individual is usually in a state of extreme good humour and full of a feeling of intellectual and physical energy; a sense of fatigue rarely occurs, and then, as a rule, only during the latter course of the toxic action.
The sense-illusions are the interesting factor at these stages. Quite ordinary objects appear as marvels. In comparison with the material world which now manifests itself, the ordinary world of everyday life seems pale and dead. Colour-symphonies are perceived. The colours gleam with a delicacy and variety which no human being could possibly produce. The objects bathed in such brilliant colours move and change their tints so rapidly that the consciousness is hardly able to follow. Then after a short time coloured arabesques and figures appear in endless play, dimmed by black shadows or brilliant with radiant light. The shapes which are produced are charming in their variety; geometrical forms of all kinds, spheres and cubes rapidly changing colour, triangles with yellow dots from which emanate golden or silver strings, radiant tapestries, carpets, filigree lacework in blue or on a dark background, brilliant red, green, blue, and yellow stripes, square designs of golden thread-work, stars with a blue, green, or yellow tint or seeming like reflections of magic crystals, landscapes, and fields bright with many-coloured precious stones, trees with light-yellow blossoms, and many things besides. As well as these objects persons of grotesque form may frequently be seen, coloured dwarfs, fabulous creatures, plastic and moving or immobile, as in a picture. At the end of the psychosis one man saw with his eyes open white and red birds, and with closed eyes white maidens, angels, the Blessed Virgin, and Christ in a light blue colour. Another patient saw her own face when she closed her eyes. An increase of sensibility to variations of light can be ascertained as in the case of strychnine.14
These internal fantastic visions may be accompanied by hallucinations of hearing. These are more rare than the former. Tinkling and other sounds are heard as from very far away or are perceived as the singing of a choir or a concert, and are described as wonderfully sweet and harmonious. Sometimes agreeable odours are perceived or a sensation as if fresh air were being fanned towards the subject; or unusual states and feelings are experienced. The general sensibility may be affected, and then the subject has the illusion of being without weight, of having grown larger, of depersonalization, or of the doubling of his ego. The body of an epileptic had become so insensible that he did not know whether he was lying down or where and how he was lying. The sense of time is diminished or is completely lost.
It is significant that in all these abnormal perceptions due to functional modification in the cerebral life the individual preserves a clear and active consciousness, and the concentration of thoughts takes place without any obstacle. The subject is fully informed as to his state. He exhibits a desire for introspection, asks himself for example whether all the strange things he experiences are real. But he rejects this idea, well knowing that he has taken anhalonium. Nevertheless the same phantasms impose themselves upon him once more. A man to whom the preparation has been given said to the physician: "I know I am in my senses and I thank god for having let me see such beautiful visions. They ought to be shown to jewellers and artists, they might be inspired by them." This was the man who believed himself to be in the heavenly kingdom and who had seen among others the Blessed Virgin of Czenstochova.
The most important fact in the whole mechanism of the cerebral cortex is the modification of the mental state, the modification of psychological life, hitherto unknown spiritual experiences compared with which the hallucinations lose in importance. An unprejudiced physician who was placed under the influence of the substance15 (mescaline), gave the following detailed description of his wonderful experiences:
My ideas of space were very unusual. I could see myself from head to foot as well as the sofa on which I was lying. All else was nothing, absolutely empty space. I was on a solitary island floating in ether. No part of my body was subject to the laws of gravitation. On the other side of the vacuum—the room seemed to be unlimited in space—extremely fantastic figures appeared before my eyes. I was very excited, perspired and shivered, and was kept in a state of ceaseless wonder. I saw endless passages with beautiful pointed arches, delightfully coloured arabesques, grotesque decorations, divine, sublime, and enchanting in their fantastic splendour. These visions changed in waves and billows, were built, destroyed, and appeared again in endless variations first on one plane and then in three dimensions, at last disappearing in infinity. The sofa-island disappeared; I did not feel my physical self; an ever-increasing feeling of dissolution set in. I was seized with passionate curiosity, great things were about to be unveiled before me. I would perceive the essence of all things, the problems of creation would be unravelled. I was dematerialized.
Then the dark room once more. The visions of fantastic architecture again took hold of me, endless passages in Moorish style moving like waves alternated with astonishing pictures of curious figures. A design in the form of a cross was very frequent and present in increasing variety. Incessantly the central lines of the ornament emanated, creeping like serpents or shooting forth like tongues towards the sides, but always in straight lines. Crystals appeared again and again, changing in form and colour and in the rapidity with which they came before my eyes. Then the pictures grew more steady, and slowly two immense cosmic systems were created, divided by a kind of line into an upper and a lower half. Shining with their own light, they appeared in unlimited space. From the interior new rays appeared in more luminescent colours, and gradually becoming perfect, they assumed the form of oblong prisms. At the same time they began to move. The systems approaching each other were attracted and repelled. Their rays were broken into infinitely fine molecules along the middle line. This line was imaginary. This image was produced by the regular collision of the rays against one another. I saw two cosmic systems both equally powerful in appearance and the difference of their structure, and in perpetual combat. Everything that happened in them was in an eternal flux. At the beginning they moved at a giddy speed which gradually changed to a quiet rhythm. I was possessed with a growing feeling of liberation. This is the solution of the mystery, it is on rhythm that the evolution of the world is finally founded. The rhythm became more and more slow and solemn and at the same time more strange and indescribable. The moment drew near when both the polar systems would be able to oscillate together, when their nuclei would combine in a tremendous construction. Then everything would become visible to my eyes. I would experience everything, understand all, no limits would bind my perception. A disagreeable trismus tore me away in this moment from the supreme tension. I gnashed my teeth, my hands perspired, and my eyes burnt with seeing. I experienced a very queer muscular sensation. I could have detached separately every single muscle from my body. I felt great unhappiness and profound discontent. Why had physical sensations torn me from the supremacy of my soaring soul?
However, I had one unshakable conviction: Everything was ruled by rhythm, the ultimate essence of all things is buried in rhythm, rhythm was for me a medium of metaphysical expression. Again the visions appeared, again the two cosmic systems, but at the same time I heard music. The sounds came from infinity, the music of the spheres, slowly rising and falling, and everything followed its rhythm. Dr. B. played music, but it did not harmonize with my pictures and disturbed them. It came again and again, that mighty tension of the soul, that desire of solution, and then each time at the decisive moment the painful cramping of the muscles of the jaw. Crystals in a magic light with shining facets, abstract details of the theory of knowledge appeared behind a misty vaporous veil which he eye sought to pierce in vain. Again forms appeared fighting one another: in concentric circles, from the middle Gothic, from the outside Romanesque forms. With an increasing jubilation and daring the gothic pointed arches penetrated between the Romanesque round arches and crushed them together. And again, shortly before the decision, the gnashing of teeth. I was not to penetrate the mystery. I was standing in the midst of the evolution of the universe, I experienced cosmic life just before its solution. The knowledge was exasperating. I was tired and experienced bodily suffering.
Thus does the character and extent of the action of this marvelous plant present itself. It will easily be understood that, as I have already stated, it will evoke in the brain of an Indian the idea that it is a personification of God. The phenomena to which it gives rise bring the Indian out of his apathy and unconsciously lead him to superior spheres of perception, and he is subjected proportionately to the same impressions as the cultivated European who is even capable of undertaking an analysis of his concomitant state. The physical phenomena which occur in either subject, such as, for example, nausea, a feeling in the breast, heaviness of the feet, muscular spasms in the calves of the leg or the masticatory muscles, are unimportant and without consequences. It is at present not possible to state to what extent the habitual administration of this substance will produce an inner desire to prolong its use, or whether anhalonism, like morphinism, produces a modification of the personality by a degradation of the cerebral functions, as I consider probable.
Thus anhalonium constitutes a large field for research work as to the physiology of the brain, experimental psychology and psychiatry. It is necessary that this work should be carried out, by reason of the richer scientific results we may expect from it than from experiments on animals.

INDIAN HEMP: CANNABIS INDICA
It is recorded that in the year 1378 the Emir Soudoun Sheikouni tried to end the abuse of Indian hemp consumption among the poorer classes by having all plants of this description in Joneima destroyed and imprisoning all the hemp-eaters. He ordered, moreover, that all those who were convicted of eating the plant should have their teeth pulled out, and many were subjected to this punishment. But by 1393 the use of this substance in the Arabian territory had increased.
Four hundred years later the attention of the authorities in Egypt was drawn to the craving for hashish, and on 8th October, 1800, a French general issued the following regulations:
Art. 1. Throughout Egypt the use of a beverage prepared by certain Moslems from hemp (hashish), as well as the smoking of the seeds of hemp, is prohibited. Habitual smokers and drinkers of this plant lose their reason and suffer from violent delirium in which they are liable to commit excesses of all kinds.
Art. 2. The preparation of hashish as a beverage is prohibited throughout Egypt. The doors of those cafés and restaurants where it is supplied are to be walled up, and their proprietors imprisoned for three months.
Art. 3. All bales of hashish arriving at the customs shall be confiscated and publicly burnt.
These regulations manifest the spirit of Napoleon, who had left Egypt shortly before this. The measures taken against this substance were the result of direct observation of its action. They were just as successful as were the recent prohibitions of the cultivation of the plant in Egypt. The drug is supplied by smugglers who procure it from Greece. The passion for this substance defies all obstacles, and extends throughout the immense territories of Asia Minor, Asia, and Africa, where it is indulged in by several hundred million people.
The plant in question is cannabis indica, Indian hemp, which is not outwardly distinguishable from cannabis sativa. In India several preparations are made from it for consumption. In the narghile or water-pipe ganja, i.e. the blossoming tops of the non-fecundated female plant, is mostly smoked, as well as charras, the resin from this part of the plant. This is obtained by rubbing the tops between the hands, working them with the feet, or rubbing them with a rough cloth. Often a man walks through the field where the plant is cultivated and the resin is then scraped off the leather apron he wears. For preparing the beverage bhang the coarsely powdered leaves of female resinous plants are generally used.16 In other parts of the world the leaves are simply mixed with seeds and filled into the pipe, or the combustion product of the lighted mixture is inhaled by other primitive and unclean methods.
Although the preparations of Indian hemp to be found in commerce are generally of a rather uncertain action, Indian hemp is a very powerful narcotic when employed in its countries of origin. Its use probably dates from about 2,000 years back. Innumerable generations have shared in its consumption, and will probably continue to do so as long as the plant can be obtained growing wild or in cultivation. It has been recently stated" that the Assyrians knew of hemp in the seventh or eighth century before Christ and used it as incense. They called it "Qunubu" or "Qunnabu," a term apparently borrowed from an old East-Iranian word "Konaba," the same as the Scythian name Kt vvaigIc (cannabis), which latter designation the plant bears at the present day, and as the word "Kanabas" which is derived from the primitive Germanic word "Hanapaz." These words are evidently identical with the Greek term tcovaf3og, i.e. noise, and would seem to originate from the noisy fashion in which the hemp smokers expressed their feelings.18 This furnishes us with the means of interpreting some statements of the ancient historian Herodotus (486-406 B.c.) He mentions that the Scythians of the Caspian and Aral Seas cultivated a plant whose seeds on combustion produced an intoxicating vapour. The other assumption, that the plant in question is one of the belladonna group, is hardly probable. Diodourus, who lived under Julius and Augustus, also mentions the plant. According to him the women of Thebes prepared a beverage from it which had an effect similar to that of Nepenthes. In the second century Galen expressly points to hemp as a substance in general consumption. He states that at dessert small cakes were passed round which increased thirst, but if taken in excess produced torpor. Toward the year 600 its use extended from India to Mongolia. Ancient Sanscrit writers speak of "Pills of Gaiety," a preparation based on hemp and sugar. In more recent times, especially in the sixteenth century, the reports of its use are more numerous. Garcia ab Horto for example found it very much in vogue in India as a euphoric and hypnotic. Prosper Alpini moreover gives us information about the action of the drug. He relates that on imbibing a preparation of the cheap powdered leaves, the people were intoxicated, and remained for a long time in a state of ecstasy, "accompanied by the visions they desired."
We have learnt quite recently how, thanks to these visions, the drug penetrated into certain regions and how in the thirteenth century and later the "Assassins" (Hashishins, herb-eaters) made use of it to gain novices who served as their docile instruments, fanatical and ready to undertake dangerous political coups and even murder. Through hashish, i.e. by means of hemp, they provoked artificial enthusiasm, ecstasy, inebriety of the senses and at the same time satisfaction of sensual desires. Abbot Arnold of Lubeck wrote in the twelfth century: "Hemp raises them to a state of ecstasy or folly, or intoxicates them. Then sorcerers draw near and exhibit to the sleepers phantasms, pleasures and amusements. They then promise that these delights will become perpetual if the orders given them are executed with the daggers provided.""
Those who were influenced in this way committed many evil deeds.2° These illusions have captured and still in our own days capture men who desire to pass from the misery of actual existence to pleasurable delights within. And how immense are the lands this drug has conquered!

The Extension of Cannabinism in Africa
In Egypt the inhabitants at the present time continue to smoke hashish or to make use of certain preparations adapted to their particular taste. To a great extent this is also the case in North Africa, from Tripoli to Morocco. The drug is used in Tunis, and in the district of Rirha to the east of Biskra the Arabs consume large quantities. They prefer hashish to opium, the action of the former being more rapid and the inebriety of a different kind. The passion for hemp increases towards the east. The whole of Algeria, especially Kabylia, is to-day full of hashish-smokers in spite of the efforts which the French have been making for many years to suppress the evil.
The Moroccans, as a rule, never take alcoholic beverages, but they like kif. Preparations from hemp are also called in those parts Shira and Fasuch. The Arabic name Benj is also used. According to the preparations in my possession Shira consists of light brownish, very agreeably smelling, easily pulverized lumps very powerful in their action. The habit of smoking hashish is very popular among the poorer classes. Among the greater part of them, especially among the camel and donkey driver, the necessity for a bout of inebriety from kif appears every few days. The more refined inhabitants of the towns and the people of the country living close to nature rejected the smoking of hemp up to the end of the last century. In out of the way quarters of many towns small shops can be found where kif smokers indulge in their vice. Years ago there were no less than twenty-seven hashish-smoking dens in Wasan where kif was openly supplied to the customers.
The inhabitants of the Rif and the rest of the Atlas, however, constitute the greater number of the consumers of Indian hemp. Old and young indulge therein from the coast of the Atlantic to the Sahara and Cyrenaica. Those who return from the groups of oases in Central Sahara report under strictest secrecy that the men of the Senussi order intoxicate themselves with hashish before preaching their penitential sermons or accomplishing ecstatic ceremonies, as is the custom among these people." The plant grows there at the highest altitudes in sunny and sheltered spots and is frequently cultivated together with tobacco. After the harvest it is dried and cut on boards reserved solely for this purpose. The finely cut hemp is smoked in very small pipes at the end of long and slender stems (sibsi). After a few whiffs the sibsi is emptied, refilled, and passed to the neighbour, who smokes, fills it again from his own supply, passes it on to his neighbour, and so on till the round is finished.
In Bornu the smoking of hemp is indulged in scarcely or not at all.
On the west coast of Africa the passion for the drug may exist in isolated parts, but is more apparent in the territories where the Congo Negroes live, for instance in Liberia on the banks of the Messurado River, in the grass prairies of Oldfield, on the banks of the Junk River, near Fisherman Lake and Grand Bassa. They smoke the fresh or dried leaves in pipes in which a piece of glowing charcoal is placed. The cultivated hemp plant is called "Diamba." The pipe consists of a calabash, the open stem of which serves as mouth-piece, the bowl of clay being fixed to a hole in the side of the gourd.
On the banks of the lower Ogowe the Ininga smoke hemp, whereas their neighbours the Fan are not addicted to the vice.
Along the coast of Loango hemp is smoked in water-pipes. The leaves and seeds are used, and are according to samples in my possession sold in long thick rolls similar to sausages wrapped in tow. In Angola the different tribes do not smoke hemp in the same manner. Whereas, for instance, the Ngangela smoke but rarely and clandestinely, the Tjivokve have a passionate love for the narghile filled with hemp. Farther south there is a region where the smoking of hemp has become a popular custom. This can be asserted of the Bergdamara in Nama- and Damaraland, of the Ovambo, and to a greater degree of the Hottentots, Bushmen, and Kaffirs. The happiness of Kaffir consists in lying on his back the whole day long and occasionally taking a whiff of hashish, the dacha. The Zulu Kaffirs place a handful of the dacha on the ground and some burning manure on top, cover both with earth and dig air-holes on both sides with their fingers into the little heap. Then they lie down one after another and each takes a few whiffs, retaining the smoke in the respiratory organs, a practice which is always succeeded by a violent attack of coughing and expectoration. Instead of these earth pipes, kudu or other horns and calabashes are employed as narghiles. The Bushmen consume the drug in ordinary tobacco pipes. The Heigum, i.e. those who sleep in the bush, smoke hemp they themselves cultivate, which is also called Heigum (haium). It brings sleep to those in the bush. The Auin men and women also avidly smoke hemp cultivated by Kaffirs in Oas and Bechuanas in Chansefeld, as well as by white farmers, from whom they procure it by way of exchange. Occasionally they cultivate it themselves in primitive fashion. In the south of central Africa, for instance in Manbunda, Matabele, and Rhodesia in the Zambesi region, hashish is smoked extensively. The Makololo and the Batoko call hemp or the smoking of hemp muto kwane. Its use extends further to Mozambique—in Quelimane hemp is called ssruma or dumo—and is especially common in the territory of the Congo.
In these parts certain relations appear between the custom of smoking hemp and religious conceptions or national and ritual organizations. It would seem that sects of some kind are founded on its use. There may be found in diverse forms, in particular among the Kassai tribes, a cult of "Riamba." The Baluba, for instance, meet at night for a religious ceremony in order to smoke hemp. The hemp-smokers have formed a sect among some of the Baluba, neighbors of the Bachilange on the banks of the river Lulua. They call themselves "friends." Large parts of the land round their villages are sown with hemp which is hardly sufficient for their wants. The cultivation is carried out on a kind of communistic basic. The cult of Riamba practised by the Baluba was compulsorily introduced by the chief Kalamba-Mukenge. He sought to create a new religion. The ancient fetishes were destroyed and in their place hemp was introduced as a magic and universal means of protection against all injury to life and as a symbol of peace and friendship. The partisans of Kalamba therefore call themselves Bena-Riamba and greet each other with the word Moio (life). They are forbidden to consume palm-wine, but it is their duty to smoke hemp. According to Wissman's description all festivals are celebrated with Riamba banquets, and when smoking the Riamba (a huge calabash more than a yard in diameter, from which everyone takes three or four whiffs) pacts of friends are made and business transactions concluded. The man who commits a misdeed is condemned to smoke a certain number of pipes of hemp under supervision until he loses consciousness. The pipe accompanies the men on voyages and in war. Every evening the people meet in the Kiota or principal square of the village to smoke hemp. The silence of the night is generally interrupted by spastic cough attacks of zealous riamba-smokers. In Luluaburg also hemp-smoking plays an important part, but not to the same extent as in the region of Kalamba.
Hemp-smoking is also greatly in vogue in East Africa, with the exception of the territory between the lakes. It commences to the east of Lake Tanganyika. The Wanyamwesi cultivate the plant everywhere. They smoke the hemp which they themselves produce in narghiles of calabashes, and also snuff hashish. They call the plant "njemu." On the coast of Khutu and Usegua, for instance, it is abundantly cultivated. The consumption of hemp is very considerable in the districts around Lake Victoria, for instance Usukuma, Ututwa, Uganda, Kavirondo, Karagwe, Ukerewe. The Wassinyanga, the Washashi and Nem people cultivate the drug and smoke it to excess, whereas it has penetrated only to a slight extent into some East African territories, for instance the Tanga coast. It is frequently to be met with among the Nyam and in Kordofan, where, although prohibited, it is sold in the marketplaces. In Madagascar hemp is called "vongony."

The Use of Hemp in Asia Minor and Asia
The cultivation of hemp formerly flourished greatly in Turkey, but was prohibited towards the end of the last century, though this did not prevent its clandestine use. A preparation is in use called Esrar, i.e. the secret, which is smoked together with tobacco. Hemp in other forms is also chewed. In Syria hemp is cultivated and the resin carefully collected. In Damascus there are many dens where opium and hashish are smoked. Both substances are used in Persia. In this country Heshish is obtained by rubbing for hours on end the flowering tops
and leaves of the plant on coarse woolen carpets, so that the resinous juice, which is too thick to penetrate into the carpet, is deposited on the surface. It is scraped off with the aid of a knife and rolled into small balls or irregular oblong sticks of a dirty green colour. The carpets used for this purpose are then washed with a small amount of water which is afterwards evaporated in the sun in porcelain plates. In this way an inferior product is obtained. It is said that nux vomica is added to some preparations of hemp. So far back as the beginning of the last century Mehemet Khan punished those who used hemp beverages with death.
The Uzbeks and Tartars are addicted to hemp. The natives of Turkestan prepare hashish for their own use. In the time of the native Khans the sale of hemp was severely punished, but naturally without avail. In Shiva many persons, including the Dervishes, are addicted to the vice, which extend to Afghanistan and Baluchistan. In the Pamirs, amid the ice and snow, Bonvalot met Afghans who were on their way from Kashgar to Kabul over the Badakshan bringing cotton fabrics and hashish.
In some provinces of India, those of the north-west for instance, the cultivation of hemp, and in particular the manufacture of ganja for smoking, is prohibited by law. As a substitute bhang is produced, from which a hashish beverage is prepared. Considerable amounts of hemp preparations are consumed in Hindustan. In Kashmir large quantities of cannabis grow on the banks of the Jhelum and the Vishan, a strip five yards wide being reserved for the cultivation of the plant on each side, and the right of gathering it let out on lease. The leaves are not smoked, but an intoxicating product, Majun, is prepared from them." The inhabitants of Bhutan high up in the Himalayas are passionately addicted to hemp-smoking. Charras is a very important object of commerce in the markets of Khatmandu in Nepal. In Bengal also there are many hemp-smokers. In certain parts merchants allow would-be smokers to take a few whiffs from a large pipe (Hukka) on payment of a fixed charge. The habit is to be met with throughout Eastern Asia, as well as in the north up to the oasis of Shami, where the Chinese Mohammedan tribe of the Taranche are addicted to it, and in the south in Burma and Siam, etc. It is always present, though not always in the same degree, for in some places, although it exists, it is little developed.
The Indian Yogis and their miracles may also be mentioned here. Among other things they have visions, and are capable of passing into trances and cataleptic states. The Yogi Haridas is said to have remained for forty days in a state resembling death, and even to have been buried. We must suppose that in order to obtain this result some kind of narcotic was taken, for instance hemp in the form of Bhang or Ganja; the latter is recommended for this purpose in Sanscrit texts. I think it likely, however, that this action is due to the application of datura or hyoscyamus, whose active principle, scopolamin, is frequently employed in medicine to produce somnolence; and this is confirmed from other sources.
In other parts of the world the employment of Indian hemp as a narcotic agent is unimportant. But it is said that the Chinese coolies in British Guiana are addicted to its use together with that of opium, and that they are supplied with these two substances under the control of the authorities.

The Effects of Indian Hemp
The course and character of the acute effects of hemp depend upon the nature and quantity of the preparation applied, and the individual disposition of the consumer, i.e. his physical and mental state, and so on. According to the general opinion hemp is smoked principally in order to increase the sexual functions or to experience voluptuous sensations in the trance state. This may be true, but it is not possible to quote precise facts as to the positive results obtained in this respect. It is possible that in the beginning some erotic visions intermingle with the dreams of the short and imaginary life into which the smoker of hashish is transported. These visions doubtless make this state desirable. Perhaps sexual potency is increased at the outset, but it nevertheless diminishes during the subsequent addiction to the drug, as in the case of opium-smoking.
After the first impressions of anxiety and restlessness hemp produces in most cases a feeling of happiness, the result of a sense of physical well-being and internal content. This state may manifest itself as an exhibition of gaiety in which the smokers behave in a very childish and stupid manner. At the same time peculiar convulsive laughter may be observed, the consequence no doubt of hallucination or bizarre illusion. After this attack of laughter one or other of the smokers starts weeping, giving his passion as the reason. Faintness may mark the beginning of this latter state.
There are other occasional consumers of hashish whose mental life is said to take the form of a wonderful dream, all the nuances of which are determined by the individual's environment and intellectual standard. In the most favourable case his impression is that all the thoughts which pass through his brain are lightened by the sun and that every one of his movements is a source of joy. Such men are not happy in the same way as the epicure or the starving man who satisfies his hunger, or the voluptuary who gratifies his desires, but like one who hears good news, a miser counting his treasures, a gambler favored with luck, an ambitious man intoxicated with success. At the same time a certain state of confusion may be present in which all kinds of far-away thoughts, of which he seeks an explanation in vain, attack the individual. Confused schemes which hitherto seemed unrealizable become simple before his very eyes and approach realization. The bonds of time and space are broken.
Hallucinations, especially of sight, hearing, and general sensibility, frequently accompany the effects described. The last-named are usually of a disagreeable character. The senses become finer and more subtle. For instance, the impression made by noises is quite out of proportion to the real sounds emitted. If a person in this state talks or laughs his ear is affected as if by the thunder of cannon; a murmur gives the impression of a waterfall. Fireworks, rockets, and many-coloured stars seem to fly from the head. This state may be temporarily interrupted by the appearance of disagreeable sensations. Mortal fear makes the individual shiver and at the same time he is attacked by violent electric shocks. He feels as if he were put in irons or his brain devoured by fire. Occasionally, however, harmonious enchanting music is heard. A delicious joy and a feeling of intense wellbeing reappear. The illusion of being raised into the air may occur, and the subject seems to be clinging to a tree or experiencing the terrible sensation of expecting from moment to moment a fall into the abyss. This latter impression of danger has sometimes also been produced by some of the medicinally applied hemp preparations. The effects of the toxin may last several hours. Alterations of taste have also been observed, generally after the termination of the principal effects. Dishes served in a restaurant to a person under the final influences of the drug were of an unheard of savouriness. A deep sleep concludes the whole process.
There are also other varieties of the acute stage of intoxication. Some African hemp-smokers, for example, after a few whiffs become quite incapable of responsibility. Naturally it is quite impossible to obtain any enlightenment as to their internal sensations. Other hemp-smokers, after smoking a great deal, remain sitting with a fixed stare and a hanging under-lip, and a continuous nervous shivering shakes their bodies. Livingstone relates of the hemp-smokers of the Zambesi that after the first violent attack of coughing has passed and the excessive salivation is in progress a torrent of senseless words or phrases is uttered, such as "The green grass grows," or "The cattle are in the pasture." Nobody pays any attention to this flood of eloquence. Other smokers pass into a state of inebriety and ecstasy, leap and bound about until faintness and exhaustion throw them down. Europeans who smoke hemp frequently exhibit an abnormal desire for movement. They run about the room and a host of wild nonsensical ideas is let loose in them, which are impulsively expressed often with the accompaniment of bursts of laughter. Under the influence of an impulse of this kind a person who had taken hemp was compelled to crawl on his hands and feet. Although he was quite conscious of his actions he had no desire to do anything else. Finally there are individuals who after imbibing large quantities of hemp preparations manifest no nervous excitation, but a profound torpor or even a state of coma. Riff pirates smoking kif may be seen squatting apathetically in a corner meditating in silence, indifferent to the outer world. Some burst occasionally into shrill laughter, while others only grin placidly to themselves. One imagines himself the son-in-law of the chief, another thinks himself at sea and makes desperate swimming movements in order not to sink with his plank-bed. A third commands a troop of imaginary slaves to perform senseless and impossible deeds, and a fourth explains to everyone who will listen that he is really a great magician and tomorrow is going to hurl into the sea the rock-bound castles of the Spaniards.
The habitual smoking of Indian hemp, chronic cannabinism, after a certain time modifies the faculties. It changes the character in a humanly and socially unpleasant direction. Moroccans who were in the service of Europeans proved serviceable and reliable until they smoked kif. In users of Indian hemp the same craving for the drug appears under the same conditions as for opium and cocaine. Hemp-smokers indulge their passion daily or every three to five days. Ebn Beithar at the end of the twelfth century declares that hashish inebriates in doses of 4 to 8 gr., that larger doses give rise to delirium and insanity, whereas habitual consumption produces mental weakness or raving madness. This is the case. In such persons the intellectual faculties are weakened, and, according to the old Arab's saying, bad habits and spiritual debasement are produced so that they sink below the level of mankind. The whole populations of villages round the basin of the Kassai are morally and physically ruined by hemp, and it is reported of the Wanyamwesi that a great part of them have become half imbecile through its abuse.
For some time information has been forthcoming from the lunatic asylums in India and Egypt as to the frequency and modifications of mental diseases due to hemp. The important role which it plays in Bengal in the appearance of these disorders is indicated by the fact that of 232 cases of mental diseases 76 were caused by hemp. Of these latter only 34 were cured. It is said that generally speaking the sudden and rapid cure of such diseases is the only diagnostic sign of insanity due to hemp. In my experience this is only valid for a small percentage of very slight cases. In the lunatic asylum in Cairo, out of 248 inmates, 60 men and 4 or 5 women owed their mental state to hashish. These patients, like the occasional eaters and smokers of the drug, may be divided into several groups.
The first group exhibits a state of general euphory and excitation with visual hallucinations and illusions sometimes extending to deliria which are less violent, less aggressive, and more easily to be influenced than alcoholic delirium. The symptoms of ataxia are not present. A cure may be accomplished in one day. Individuals in a state of excitation may be considered as irresponsible.
The second group is characterized by a state of acute mania. The sense-illusions are terrible and are succeeded by maniacal delusions of persecution, sometimes also by a state of violent fury. The patient is agitated, garrulous, a prey to morbid illusions, and suffers from insomnia. Such cases last several months and are not always curable.
The third and very numerous group comprises mentally weakened persons who pass into a maniacal state after every excess of hashish. During their stay in the hospital they appear calm. Their talkativeness alone discloses their mental state. They are easily satisfied, lazy, without energy, indifferent to the future, without interest for their relatives. Their only desire is to be well fed and to get tobacco. The slightest provocation, however, evokes a state of violent excitation. After dismissal from the hospital they soon fall once more into the state of mania. They are extremely agitated, insult their friends, swear and easily become violent. They deny that they use hashish, immediately after they have praised its wonderful properties. This state of mania is in many cases chronic and ends in incurable dementia. These individuals seldom commit crimes.
Besides bronchitis and dysentery caused by the irritants contained in the hashish-smoke, this passion gives rise to general physical deterioration. The smokers of hashish may be recognized from a distance by their pale faces, hollow cheeks, and insecure gait. The offspring of inveterate hemp-smokers are liable to be of inferior quality if conception took place during inebriety. Among the Riff pirates scrofulous children are known as "Uld l'Kif," i.e. son of kif. What can be considered as true of alcohol in this respect is also valid for hemp, a substance of quite a different kind. The spermatozoa are subjected to the injurious effects of the active principles of hashish and are in this state conveyed to the ovule. It seems to me probable that the craving for hemp can be inherited.
If, as in India, hemp is consumed with the addition of stramonium datura, then the resulting maniacal state and dementia are greatly facilitated.
Everything I have stated about cannabinism tends to prove that the substance in question is a Phantasticum of a kind which, besides giving rise to sensorial illusions that are not always agreeable and to individually occurring feelings of intense well-being, is apt to develop extremely brutal effects leading to mental diseases. This impression of well-being is seated in the soul and cannot therefore be localized in the brain. Attention must be drawn to the differences between these mental diseases and those produced by cocaine. In both cases the active agent is a chemical substance. The process of the reaction is just as obscure as with other substances of a similar nature. Is the action in question an irritation? If this be assumed we must endeavor to find the reason for the difference in the qualities of the irritation which evoke such extremes in functional alterations of the activity of the brain. Even if this were known another problem arises. Why is the repeated action of these two substances so different and why does it extend to different parts of the brain? If in all these problems a chemical action or an action founded on chemical affinity were assumed, as I have already stated, we would gain more insight into the causality of the action of these substances. Certain components of hemp must be regarded as having a specific relationship to certain points of the brain which results in local modifications having the consequences described. These apparent effect are quite dissimilar for instance to those of anhalonium lewinii which calls forth utterly different, and we might almost say nobler, alterations of the functions or the state of certain groups of ganglia.
The abuse of hashish cannot be prevented in spite of severe regulations. Although in the French part of Africa the smoking of hashish is prohibited, and although it is also mentioned in the new law relating to the restriction of the traffic in opium, cocaine, etc., it is smoked in spite of the difficulty of obtaining the drug. If its use is prohibited in public places, the passion is nevertheless indulged clandestinely. Public scandal is avoided, but the craving itself is all the more protected because it is hardly or not at all to be observed. If the cultivation of Indian hemp organized in Germany in 1917 for medicinal purposes should furnish hashish suitable for ordinary consumption, a new source of toxicomania would be established.

FLY-AGARIC: AGARICUS MUSCARIUS
The passionate desire which consciously or unconsciously leads man to flee from the monotony of everyday life, to allow his soul to lead a purely internal life even if it be only for a few short moments, has made him instinctively discover strange substances. He has done so even where nature has been most niggardly in producing them and where the products seem very far from possessing the properties which would enable him to satisfy this desire. In North-East Asia, in the territory of Siberia, through which the Obi, Yenisei, and Lena flow, bounded on the north by the icy Siberian Sea and on the east by the Bering Sea, the Samoyeds, Ostyaks, Tungus, Yakuts, Yukagirs, Chukches, Koryaks, and Kamchadales in ancient times discovered in the agaricus muscarius , the muchamor of the Russians, properties which supply them for hours together with what for them is happiness. This is the well-known poisonous mushroom, which has been the object of intense chemical research. Nevertheless, further scientific efforts are necessary in order to identify its active elements, particularly those which give rise to hallucinations. One thing is certain, the substance which caused me to place this mushroom among the group of the Phantastica is not muscarine.

Character of Agaric Inebriety
The effects of the fungus have long been known. The attempt has been made to establish a relationship between them and the accounts according to which the Norwegians or giants of old, called Berserkers, were at times seized by peculiar attacks of fury and savageness. It was assumed that these attacks were due to the consumption of agaric which was taken for this purpose by all the peoples of the North as far as Iceland. This, however, is mere surmise. If it were really the case, then the use of the fungus by the peoples above mentioned must be considered as a relic of its former very extensive employment. It is only since the end of the eighteenth century that precise reports have been forthcoming, especially as to the great demand for the plant. In some parts of the country it cannot indeed be found in quantities sufficient to satisfy the need. This is, for example, the case in the territory inhabited by the Koryaks, and in the Taigonos Peninsula it does not grow at all. From Kamchatka, where it abounds, it is conveyed from merchant to merchant right round the Gulf of Penshina. Formerly the Koryaks paid for the merchandise with reindeer. In winter they frequently exchange an animal for a single mushroom.
In order to obtain the desired effects one large mushroom or two or three small ones dried in the open air or in smoke are sufficient for one day. The smaller agarics with a large amount of white warts are, as the inhabitants of Kamchatka state (in my opinions correctly), more powerful in their action than the pale red and less spotted specimens. Cold or warm extracts of the agaric in milk or water are also frequently consumed together with the juice of vaccinium uliginosum, the bogwortleberry, or the juice of the French willow, epilobium angustifolium. The inhabitants of Kamchatka are said to prepare a beverage from the latter plant alone. The Koryaks and the Chukches have been observed to take out small round boxes made of birch fiber or leather which contained small pieces of dried fly-agaric. From time to time they placed one in their mouth and retained it there without swallowing it. Among the Koryaks the drug seems to be used in the following manner: the women chew the dried agaric, and roll the masticated substance in their hands into small sausages, which are then swallowed by the man.
Among the exceedingly numerous problems offered by the fly-agaric not the least important is that the Koryaks, Kamchadales, etc., discovered that the urine of a person intoxicated by agaric also possesses intoxicating properties. Who taught them that the active principle of the mushroom is not destroyed in the organism but is completely excreted in the urine, which then has the same effect on the brain as the agaric itself? As soon as the Koryak notices his inebriety decreasing, he drinks his own urine, if he has no more agarics, or in order to economize. The Koryak women pass a tin receptacle reserved for this purpose to the intoxicated person into which the urine is passed in the presence of all. The urine, frequently still warm, is drunk by the person awakening from sleep and after a few minutes exercises its influence. In this way the action may be renewed several times. If there should be any of the urine left over, it is preserved for a short time to be used on the next occasion. Even during a journey on the reindeer-sledge, when the half-drunk Koryak leaves the camp, he collects his urine in the receptacle which he always carries with him. The urine of another person inebriated by agaric acts in the same way, but, it would seem, only once. A traveller passed near the yurta of a Koryak and wanted an agaric for his domestic. The Koryak, however, was drunk, and passed urine with which the domestic obtained a more prolonged state of inebriety than the Koryak himself had reached. When the latter attempted to make the substance act for a third time, utilizing the urine of the person he had accommodated, failure resulted. It is unlikely that the active principle can be found in the urine in quantities large enough to be effective after having passed through four or five persons. It is not always for reasons of economy or poverty that the urine is employed. It is stated that the Shamans of the Yugakirs and Tungus always imbibe an agaric urine of this kind before consuming the actual mushroom.
The physical and mental condition of the individual has a considerable influence on the modifications of the cerebral functions caused by the agaric. There are not only differences between one individual and another, but also, according to the circumstances, in the same person. The same man may be at one time very susceptible to a single mushroom and at another hardly affected at all by several. On the whole, the effects are very similar. Generally they begin to be experienced in the first hour after consumption, but sometimes not before two hours. In some cases twitching and trembling of the limbs together with subsultus tendinum can be observed. As a rule consciousness is maintained at the commencement and even a slight numbness does not hinder the individual from feeling light on his feet and from still retaining his will-power for a short time. In this state he is in the best of humours and experiences a feeling of internal joy and contentment of spirit. Then hallucinations and illusions set in. He speaks with persons who are not present, but whom he sees with the eyes of his soul. He tells them with delight of the large fortune he possesses, of the wonderful things he sees, and how happy he is. He may also be interrogated by the persons present, and is frequently able to answer quite reasonably, but always in connection with the phantasms which in his state of intoxication appear to be real. He sits there, quite calm, without rage or fury, pale, with a glassy stare, as if dead to his environment. In this state independent actions dictated by free will are possible. A Koryak woman, for instance, was found sitting in a tent in a state of inebriety due to agaric, incessantly beating a drum and quietly moaning.
In 1776 Krasheninnikov described persons who in the absurd manner of very feverish patients became, according to their temperament, extremely sad or excessively jolly. Some jump about, dance and sing, others cry and are prey to "astonishing fright." Illusions of a particular kind accompany these sometimes different forms of inebriety. Through his enlarge pupils the individual sees all objects in a monstrous size and remarks upon this. A small hole seems to be an enormous abyss, and a spoonful of water a lake. This deceptive perception is apt to influence his actions. If a small obstacle is placed in his way, as is frequently done by the Koryaks for a joke, he stops, examines it, and finally jumps over it with a large bound. On the basis of his illusions, the conclusion which he arrives at is very reasonable. Therefore the two points of the brain from which the illusion, the macropsia, the magnified vision on one hand and the reasonable thought on the other, originate, must be different, but the method of connection between them must be the normal legitimate bond of sense-perception and the judgment of reason. The voluntary impulse which leads to the action, in this case to the jump, originates from logical thought, and is transmitted to the muscles in a natural way. I presume that the point of the brain influenced and causing the visual illusions is different from that from which the visual hallucinations are started.
Taken in greater quantities the mushroom evokes all kinds of illusory perceptions. An inebriated person declared that he stood on the edge of hell and the agaric ordered him to fall on his knees and confess his sins. This he did amidst the laughter of his friends. This religious aspect of the effects of the Phantasticum is not unusual. An extremely violent initial excitation also frequently occurs. It may be observed in agaric-eaters gradually to increase and to become a veritable attack of raving madness. A man in this state wanted to rip open his abdomen because the agaric ordered him to do so. In this case, as in the preceding, it was hallucinations of hearing which caused or almost caused these actions.
In other cases the motor excitations dominate at the beginning. The eyes take on a savage expression, the face is red and bloated, the hands tremble violently, and the individual seizes a drum of reindeer leather and dances or rushes about the tent to the noise of the instrument until he sinks down in fatigue and falls asleep. In the latter state, which lasts half an hour to an hour, he sees fantastic and agreeable sights which make him happy. Awakened from sleep the individual staggers about until a new crisis with the same course sets in. This may be repeated several times, an act of violence being in this state quite possible.
Occasional by-effects are vomiting, salivation, and diarrhoea. For easily comprehensible reasons hardly any observations of the harmful consequences of the consumption of the drug have been forthcoming. It must be assumed that in the course of time the incessantly renewed material attack on the brain must bring about a numbing of its functions, which after all is difficult to ascertain on account of the low intellectual standard of the tribes in question. Nevertheless, it is stated that even within these limits of mental inferiority a lessening of the faculties has been observed, sometimes amounting to debility. It must be of no small degree to make an impression under these conditions.
On account of the dangers which this substance possesses for the individual the means of procuring it have been surrounded with difficulties. It is prohibited, for instance, to sell fly-agaric to Koryaks. In spite of this the fungus reaches them, for here, as in other countries, trade laughs at all restrictions and at the dangers connected with an infringement of the law.

SOLANACE/E
The energy of the noxious solanaceae of the groups of atropece and hyoscyamece becomes manifest when their active elements affect the brain, in a peculiar form which is similar or even identical for all representatives of these two species, but quite different to all other solanacex. This uniformity of action is the result of the concordance or close relationship in the chemical structure of the active elements. They contain the alkaloids atropine or scopolamine or closely related chemical bodies. These substances, and also some derivatives of the group of solanece, for instance solanum incanum L. in North-West Africa, have the property of calling forth disorders of the functions of the brain which become apparent in the form of a peculiar excitation followed by a state of depression. This constitutes a very characteristic element of their action and has played an important role in the history of mankind. I have pointed out their great importance elsewhere."
We find these plants associated with incomprehensible acts on the part of the fanatics, raging with the flames of frenzy and fury and persecuting not only witches and sorcerers but also mankind as a whole. Garbed in the cowl, the judge's robe, and the physician's gown, superstitious folly instituted diabolical proceedings in a trial of the devil and hurled victims into the flames or drowned them in blood. Magic ointments or witches' philtres procured for some reason and applied with or without intention produced effects which the subjects themselves believed in, even stating that they had intercourse with evil spirits, had been on the Brocken and danced at the Sabbat with their lovers, or caused damage to others by witchcraft. The mental disorder caused by substances of this kind, for instance datura, has even instigated some persons to accuse themselves before a tribunal. The peculiar hallucinations evoked by the drug had been so powerfully transmitted from the subconscious mind to consciousness that mentally uncultivated persons, nourished in their absurd superstitions by the Church, believed them to be reality.
These substances taken in suitable doses may give rise to a state of dementia lasting for hours and even days. I am certain that it has frequently been employed for purely criminal purposes in order to pass off certain persons as mad and thus accomplish private or political designs. I have met with many cases of this kind in the history of mankind and by means of toxicological analysis proved their real significance."
Many other more repugnant things have been accomplished with these substances. They have served to intoxicate girls and seduce them to immoral acts. This may be done without the victim becoming unconscious; she tolerates the criminal with open eyes but blinded soul, and even, as a result of augmented sexual excitation, complies with his wishes.
Besides other disagreeable symptoms these solanacew and their active elements, especially atropine and scopolamine, give rise to hallucinations and illusions of sight, hearing, and taste, which differ, however, from those produced by the other Phantastica. They are not of an agreeable but on the contrary of a terrifying and distressful kind. It is doubtful whether when smoking or eating such substances a state of such supreme internal well-being is obtained which is to be considered as the principal inducement to their habitual use. It has not been possible to obtain a precise statement on this point from the relatively small number of persons who make use of solanacex. Cases if poisoning by one or other of these plants do not afford any enlightenment in their respect, and only allow of suppositions as to how the coarse functional disturbances in the brain are felt. The opinion that henbane, the Arabic benj , is the nepenthes of Homer is quite erroneous. An elementary knowledge of the effects of henbane suffices to refute this hypothesis.

Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger)
In the first century of our era it was known in Rome that the hyoscyamus comprised numerous species, and that the black variety caused insanity. Such knowledge was already at that time very old. For this plant had already served in ancient Greece as a poison, and as a means to simulate dementia and to evoke prophecies. A primary accidental intoxication must have impressed those present with the fact that the
Phantastica: Hallucinating Substances    109
person lost his reason, that his eyes shone and the pupils were enlarged, that he made senseless speeches, became aggressive, had sense-illusions which he took for interior visions, and then fell into a state of somnolence with complete insensibility similar to sleep. From this knowledge to the use of the substance as an anodyne or a sorcerer's potion is only a step. The Middle Ages show us this transposition in practice. The wise Bishop Albertus Magnus, regarded in his days in the thirteenth century as a sorcerer, stated that the properties of henbane played a part in the conjuration of demons by necromancers. The ancient names of the plant, pythonion and apollinaris, are attributed to the gifts of prophecy obtained by its ingestion.
Recent reports on the impressions of patients who were treated with scopolamine, the active principle of henbane, supply more information. They experience a feeling of pressure in the head as if a heavy body rested on it. At the same time an invisible force seems to close their eyelids. Sight becomes vague and all objects seem to be stretched lengthwise. All kinds of visual hallucinations are produced while the eyes are open. For instance, a black circle on a silver background or a green circle on a golden background appears. The eyes then close and sleep sets in. The senses of taste and smell are also frequently affected. When sleeping the individual is surrounded by fantastic apparitions.

Hyoscyamus Muticus (Hyoscyamus Albus)
The properties described above are very marked in the species of henbane called by the Arabs sekaran or ssakaran, i.e. the inebriating. It flourishes throughout Egypt, and according to the accounts given by my friend Schweinfurth, very plentifully in the oasis of Shargeh and in the Sinai Peninsula. In the latter the Bedouins, Towara, and others smoke the dry, felt-like leaves and become deliriously drunk.
An application of the same kind of hyoscyamus muticus (hyoscyamus insanus Stocks) is frequently met with in Baluchistan and the Punjab, where it is called kohi-bhang and kohi-bung. The inhabitants smoke it in small quantities like Indian hemp.

Thornapple (Daturas Stramonium)
"In the years 37 and 38 Antony set out on an expedition against the Parthians, who opposed an almost invulnerable barrier in the East against the domination of the Romans. Like many others before and after him, not only did he meet with no success, but he was humiliated nearly every day by this warlike people. The retreat of the troops was a very sad one. Provisions were lacking. The army was forced to fall back upon unknown roots and herbs for food, which they first had to test as to their quality. In this way they found a herb that killed after producing insanity. 'He who consumed a little forgot all that he had done and recognized nothing.' He did nothing but turn over every stone he found in his path with the greatest gravity, as though it were a difficult task. There was a field where the soldiers did nothing else.""
Judging by these symptoms I consider this plant to be datura or hyoscyamus, more probably the former. Although the similarity of the mode of action of the plants of the group of solanaceee is very great, there are nevertheless gradations in the symptoms of intoxication which render it possible to determine a particular species with a certain degree of accuracy. The senseless activities and occupation caused by a datura-intoxication are characteristic of this plant. In addition to this the loss of memory corresponding to the period of the intoxication must be taken into account. This has been known for centuries, and has given rise to many crimes. Towards the end of the seventeenth century extensive poisoning by means of the plant took place, which gave rise to the following precise description:
If only a small quantity of the plant is given to a person his mind is depraved and deluded to such a degree that anything can be done in his presence without fear of his remembering it on the following day. This distraction, mental disorder, and madness of his mind lasts for twenty-four hours. During this time you may take his keys from his pocket or open his chests and cupboards before his very eyes. You can do what you like with him, he notices nothing, understands nothing, and knows nothing about it on the next day.
By means of this drug one can do as one pleases with women and obtain anything from them. That is why I believe that there is no more noxious plant in the world, and none whereby such evil things can be accomplished in a natural manner.
Domestics ate a plate of lentils in which by mistake thomapple seeds were contained. They became quite mad. The lace-maker exhibited an unusual zeal and fussiness, threw the weaving-cone to and fro and entangled everything. The chambermaid entered the room and cried at the top of her voice: "Look! All the devils of hell are coming!" A servant carried all the wood into the secret chamber under the pretext that he had to distill liquor. Another hit two hatchets together and said he was chopping wood. Another crept about on the ground, and dug up and scratched the earth and the grass with his mouth like a hog with its snout. Another imagined he was a wheelwright and wanted to pierce and bore holes in all the wood. He then seized a large piece of wood in which a large hole had been burnt, held this hole to his mouth, made swallowing motions and exclaimed: "Now I am almost properly drunk. Oh, this drink tastes good indeed!" This good man intoxicated himself in his imagination with a piece of dry wood and an empty hole. Another went into the smithy and cried for help to catch the fish which he imagined to be there in enormous numbers. This insane herb has evoked all kind of senseless illusions among others. It allotted different tasks to various tradesmen which were carried out without payment and produced farcical results. The next day nobody remembered his ridiculous doings and could not be persuaded to believe that he had acted in this manner.
In our own days men have been seen to follow the most extravagant impulses under the influence of datura, for instance to dance or to climb incessantly. A tailor who had come under the influence of belladonna and datura exhibited the usual dilatation of the pupils as well as severe convulsions. After these symptoms had disappeared he sat upright in his bed after the manner of tailors and made motions as if he were hard at work, threading the needle, etc. In this state he neither heard nor saw what happened around him. This state of unconsciousness lasted for fifteen hours.
More serious effects, however, have been produced by religious fanatics, clairvoyants, miracle-workers, magicians, priests, and imposters in men who in the course of religious ceremonies inhaled the smoke of the burning plant or were forced to imbibe the substance as a beverage. The herbe aux sorciers, herbe au diable (magic or devil's herb) served to evoke fantastic hallucinations, illusions, and deceptions. In demonology this plant has played a more important role than the playman ever suspected.
Sense-illusions accompanied by troubles of the motor organs, disorders of the perceptive faculties and orientation necessarily also occur if the leaves or other parts of the plant are smoked habitually for pleasure. This can be ascertained in East Africa among the aborigines and the Arabs. They smoke datura stramonium and datura fastuosa L. (datura alba Nees). The latter is called mnarci and mnarabu; datura stramonium passes among the Arabs and Swahili under the name of muranha.
In India there are also areas where datura is used, for instance in Bengal. Enthusiastic devotees smoke cannabis indica or ganjah with two or three datura seeds or a certain quantity of the leaves. In order to reinforce or modify the action of alcoholic beverages on the brain, seeds are crushed into the liquor, which is then strained and mixed with palm-wine. This is practised, for instance, in the province of Madras. In Bombay the fumes of the roasted seeds are brought in contact with an alcoholic beverage for one night. It is certain that the active elements of the plant evaporate and are apt to be absorbed by the alcohol. It is stated that in Japan the leaves are smoked together with tobacco by those addicted to this vice.
It can be gathered from the preceding pages that the effects of datura with their singular illusions and strange disorders of consciousness are known in three continents. But this lant is also not unknown in America. In Darien and in the Choco territory the inhabitants cause children to drink a decoction of the seeds of datura sanguinea Ruiz et Pay. During the resulting mental confusion they are compelled to walk. Gradually the initial excitation is succeeded by a state of depression and at the same time a failure of motility occurs. As it is a common belief that the gift of discovering gold is combined with a visionary state, the earth is dug up where the child falls down, and as there is a large quantity of gold in the soil, it is frequently discovered in that place.
Many other Phantastica are said to bestow a like gift of divination. This belief is as ancient as the idea that sense-illusions sharpen the wits and intelligence. The conquerors of Mexico found besides anhalonium lewinii a species of datura, datura meteloides D. C . , or ololiuhqui26 in use. The latter when imbibed gave the individual the power of discovering stolen objects. The effects of a plant of this kind were at that time excellently described as follows: "Aiunt multa ante oculos observari phantasmata, multiplices imagines ac monstrificas rerum figuras, detegique ferum si quidpiam rei familiaris subreptum sit" (They declare that they are able under its influence to see many fantastic apparitions, multiplying and changing images, and wonderful forms, and also to detect a thief).
This datura, datura quercifolia R. et P. (Brugmansia bicolour Pers) , and perhaps also datura arborea L. and datura sanguinea H.B.K. were and still are in our days employed as inebriating substances by the Indians, as well as by the South American tribes which use coca. Tschudi himself observed the effects of datura sanguinea, the herb of the graves, bovoehero or yerba de huaca, and yerba de Guacas. The Indian who had drunk the beverage, Tonga, prepared from the capsule of the seeds, passed into a profound lethargy. He sat there with convulsively closed mouth and stared at the earth with an empty gaze. After a quarter of an hour his eyes began to roll, he foamed at the mouth, and his whole body was shaken with convulsions. After these symptoms ceased he fell asleep for several hours. In the evening he was found surrounded by a circle of very attentive hearers to whom he narrated how he had communicated with the spirits of his ancestors. From this the name of herb of graves is derived. The Indian priests of old took datura when they desired to enter into communication with their gods or to attain a state of prophetic inspiration. This led to thomapple being identified with the sacerdotal plant of the Oracle of Delphi. However, judging by the symptoms I consider this supposition as unfounded from a toxicological point of view. In Delphi sulphuretted hydrogen containing gases gushed out of a crevice in the earth and acted on the Pythia seated on the tripod.
It is reported that the Red Indians of the Great Salt Lake, the Utahs, and also the Pimas and Maricopas smoke the leaves of datura stramonium together with those of arctostaphylos glauca, or chew them without an admixture.
The use of plants containing tropeins is frequently rendered impossible by the fact that all the tropeins give rise to serious cardiac symptoms which endanger the functions of the heart and because a habituation to tropeins takes place only to a very slight degree. The brain, however, for a considerable time endures the state of excitation to which it is subjected.

Datura arborea
The field of action of datura arborea is the same as that of the solanace2e I have already described. It is employed by the South American tribes of the upper reaches of the Amazon as well as farther to the north.
i; The Jibaros call the plant and the beverage they prepare from it maikoa, the Canelos Indians guantuc (huantuc) . This datura is a shrub found in a wild state in the forests of Ecuador and the subtropical mountainous regions. The Indians, who also cultivate the plant, use it to prepare an inebriating beverage taken in order to obtain revelations from the spirits during intoxication. According to Karsten's observations the bark is scraped off and pressed in calabashes until approximately 200 gr. of the juice are obtained. This is one dose. It is either imbibed at home or in the especially built "Rancho of Dreams." The Indian spends three days in this abode. He is allowed to consume only one roasted unripe banana per day, but as much tobacco-juice and extract of datura as he likes. Among the Jibaros on the Rio Upano or Santiago, when the boys attain manhood, they drink maikoa on the festival celebrated on this occasion. Badly behaved boys are made to drink maikoa while fasting. This is considered a radical cure. Magicians drink it in order to cure diseases and also to bewitch enemies while in the state of inebriety. Before emptying the cup they chant an incantation. Warriors drink it before a campaign, to learn whether they are in danger, are to live long, etc., and others make use of the drug to procure advice from the spirits or internal visions.
The effects begin with a pronounced impulse to move. Those especially who are not yet used to the toxin strike about them with weapons, sticks, etc. This state of raving madness, similar to that produced by belladonna, may become so violent that the insane person has to be bound by his own followers. In this state he speaks incoherently and suffers sense-illusions of the kind already described. During the festival of puberty the Jibaros hold the boy who has taken maikoa from behind until the violent excitation is succeeded by the second period, that of narcosis, into which all the drinkers pass. During the latter visions occur of beautiful plantations, wonderful animals, large pots of beer, and other things which make the heart of the Jibaro rejoice.
In this way knowledge of the action of the tropeins extracted from the solanaceaz and their use establishes a connection between that distant world and ours. The application of this knowledge permits an influence on the soul and the production of momentary states of mental alienation. These states force the individual so far from the path of his ordinary thoughts that it is easily understood how these intellectually uncivilized people attribute their visions to a supernatural and religious origin.

Duboisia hopwoodii
The fifth continent, Australia, also possesses a member of the solanacex, duboisia hopwoodii, which is used as a narcotic. It only occurs in Central Australia. It is found in great numbers near the border of South Australia between latitude 23° and 24° south and at longitude 138° east, and also approximately 50 miles to the west and east of this district. In the form of bushes its growth extends from the Barcoo River and the Darling River (Queensland) to the border of West Australia. It is not found in Tasmania or Victoria. In all the parts where it is found the plant is assiduously collected. Large expeditions are undertaken for this purpose. The natives make use of it in exchange for other goods. They collect the tops and leaves in August when the plant blossoms and hang them up to dry. They also dry the material under a layer of fine sand, powder it, and keep it in skins or small crescent-shaped satchels.
The plant and the drug prepared from it is named pituri (pitchery, petgery, bedgery). The latter represents a lumpy, brown mass, consisting of the powdered leaves of the pituri with its petioles, nerves, and stalks. The blacks of the Wilson River, Herbert River, Cooper and Eyre Creek, and especially the Mallutha tribe, make use of the drug. It is both chewed and smoked. When chewing it a quid is formed which is passed from mouth to mouth. The last chewer sticks it behind the ear of the first. The pituri-chewer masticates the substance and sticks it behind his ear, whence it is taken from time to time, to be finally swallowed. The quid is said to be also prepared with charcoal and employed in the usual manner. The leaves of duboisia are smoked. They are moistened, some alkaline charcoal is added, and they are then rolled into the form of a cigar. This pituri cigar is also chewed and the saliva swallowed."
We are here once more confronted with the remarkable practice of adding alkaline substances to stimulating or narcotic remedies which has frequently been mentioned in this book. This is done in the case of the chewing of coca and betel, and also in that of tobacco. Peoples of all kinds have instinctively found the most suitable means of setting free the active elements of the plant and enabling them to pass into the organism. In pituri an extremely active alkaloid is liberated which is nothing else but scopolamine (hyoscine), also present in thornapple, datura. It is the active principle of the series of solanaceze with which we have to deal. One tenth of a milligramme often suffices to give rise to serious intoxications. The Australian natives highly value pituri, which violently irritates the mucous membrane of the nose, eyes, and mouth, as a tonic on their long journeys across the desert. Its primary action even on animals is highly exciting, and those who employ it utilize it also in order to obtain courage before battle. They are aware of the extreme toxicity of the product and even use it to poison the large emu.
The case of a man who, in order to break himself of the alcohol habit, for nine months took scopolamine in increasing doses from 0.0005 to 0.002 gr. per day, gives an idea how pituri exercises its effect in larger quantities. He exhibited mental disorders with hallucinations particularly of sight and crazy illusions which are among the typical effects of the tropeins and scopoleins, including belladonna, scopolia, and duboisia. Under the influence of the toxin he lost the sense of locality and did not recognize his habitual surroundings. He talked unreasonably and his memory was weakened. He was cured in several days. In small doses such as are consumed by the eaters and smokers of pituri scopolamine gives rise to hallucinations and illusions, similar to the effects of datura, with the same limitation of consciousness which seems to be so agreeable and detaches the individual from time and space.

BANISTERIA CAAPI
In North-West Amazonia, from the Orinoco over the Rio Negro to the Cordilleras, near the cataracts of the Orinoco, on the borders of the Rio Uaupes, Rio Icana, Rio Meta, Rio Sipapo, Rio Caqueta, on the upper reaches of the Putumayo, and Rio Napo, in the enormous territory which extends over parts of Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, various tribes—in addition to alcoholic beverages and tobacco, and also coca, which is in common use—make use of numerous hardly known plants, especially of banisteria caapi, as a Phantasticum. Among others the Guahibo and Tukano tribes (for instance the Correguaje, Tama, Zaparo, Uaupe, Yekuand, Bare, Baniva, Mandavaka, Tariana, Cioni, Jibaros, Colourados, Cayapas) employ the plant.
The banisteria is a liana of the family of malpighiacece which occurs in the virgin forests of Ecuador and is also cultivated by the Indians. In Ecuador it is called ayahuasca in the Quichua language, by the Jibaros natema, by the Colorados nepe, by the Cayapas pinde, and by the Yekuand kahi; the beverage prepared from the plant passes under the same name. Sometimes it is also applied together with other plants, among others perhaps with the liana ho2madictyon amazonicum. If the latter is added to the beverage the character of the effects are different, because this plant, which belongs to the species echites, is extremely toxic. It is known that, for instance, hcemadictyon suberectum (echites venenosa) is very toxic and the echites masculata secretes a stupifying milky juice. The Indians probably add tobacco-water also to the beverage.
It seems certain that banisteria, generally used by itself, evokes mental disorders similar to the effects of datura. In order to obtain these effects, as may be gathered from the excellent observations of Karsten, a piece of the lower part of the liana is cut off, cleaned, and reduced to small lumps. The triturated substance is boiled in water, from two to twenty-four hours, in order to reduce the initial quantity to a small volume according to the activity desired. The latter, however, depends not only on the concentration of the liquid but also on the quantity imbibed and the degree of repletion of the stomach. If the stomach and small intestines are empty the passage of the drug into the lymph-tracts takes place much more rapidly and with greater force. These conditions are realized when caapi is consumed in the usual manner, because certain doses of the substance give rise to vomiting, which is desirable and to a certain degree necessary, as a preparation for the final action on the brain. This vomiting takes place in regular intervals after every new quantity of approximately one litre has been imbibed. In this manner the way is prepared for the absorption of further doses of the narcotic.
Ordinary people take a beverage prepared in a different way from that of the sorcerers, who, in order to discover the causes of and to cure diseases or to bewitch their enemies, add to the already extremely bitter banisteria liquid in the course of ritualistic ceremonies the wood and the leaves of another liania called jahi. They are thus transported into a state of ecstasy. This magic plant jahi, yahe, or yaje, is probably identical with the hcemadictyon mentioned above. At any rate it seems to act in the same way as banisteria.
During the boiling of the plant and when drinking the prepared beverage a drum is generally beaten. The Jibaros drink this beverage during a special festival, the Natema feast. This lasts for a week. Men, women, and half-grown children, all who wish to "dream," meet on this occasion. Before passing the cup to the drinkers the dispenser of the beverage murmurs a magic formula. There are many other occasions for Natema drinking, not during a public festival, but at home, and many make use of it habitually. Widows, for example, drink it before choosing a new spouse. It is generally imbibed when a person desires to pass into a state of trance, during which the future and the best possible course of his actions is revealed to him.
Usually the effects of the inebriating beverage are as follows: After it has exercised its action on the stomach in the form of vomiting and has reached the brain in sufficient quantities the drinker is seized with vertigo. He staggers, leans on a stick as long as he can hold himself, and then falls down in a narcosis full of sense-illusions. As a rule, as is the case with all substances of this kind, the narcosis is preceded by a more or less marked state of excitation, during which the subject is very agitated, dances, screams, etc. It is doubtful whether this state is accompanied by convulsions.
The characteristics which make the Indian love the aya-huasca beverage are, in addition to the visionary dreams, the pictures bearing on his personal happiness which he sees "in his mind's eye"; beasts in which demons are incarnated or other peculiar (sometimes agreeable) phantoms. Perhaps also sexual impressions are experienced. It seems as if mainly illusions and visions are produced in the mind of the toxicomaniac.
Travellers have occasionally tried banisteria on themselves. KochGrunberg, for instance, drank two small calabashes of the magic liquor. After a short time he experienced, especially when he emerged into darkness, a peculiar scintillation in crude colours before his eyes. When writing, shadows like red flames passed over the paper. The dose was insufficient to enable him to experience the sensations produced in the Indians by this Phantasticum. Nevertheless, the incomplete symptoms here described suffice to prove that banisteria gives rise to visual hallucinations like those evoked by anhalonium lewinii in a perfect form. After having drunk the beverage another traveller saw beautiful landscapes, towns, towers, and parks, and even wild animals against which he defended himself. This was succeeded by a feeling of sleep. A third case of experimental self-application resulted in the seeing of brilliant circles of light, many-coloured butterflies, and the feeling of a duplication of the personality; such grave physical symptoms, according to the description," that their consistency must be doubted from a medical point of view. The symptoms in question are the following: a very accentuated contracture of the lower jaw-bone muscles and on the other hand chattering of the teeth, as well as a "complete" suppression of the pulse and respiration which occurred while the individual remained fully conscious and continued to think and act in a way calculated to overcome the "poisoning" which had seized him.
The use of this Phantasticum is intimately associated with religious ideas similar to those I have described in the preceding pages in connection with other toxic substances. This association may be accounted for by the fact that the sense-illusions evoked by the drug are taken for actual occurrences by the intoxicated subject. It is a state of the soul which tears him away from the realities of everyday life and makes him acquainted with new, incomprehensible and agreeable things. This spiritual state has become indispensable to the drug-taker and will always remain so.

GELSEMIUM SEMPERVIRENS
The substances described above terminate the series of those drugs which man has most frequently employed in order to satisfy the imperative desire to modify his mental state in an agreeable manner. It is probably that one day other substances will accidentally be discovered which are capable of acting in the same way on the brain. Thus during a severe attack of rheumatism a man took a large quantity of an alcoholic tincture of gelsemium sempervirens , a plant which is liable to act on the brain and the medulla oblongata. Noticing an appreciable result he continued to take it, and finally became a slave to the drug. He gradually augmented the quantity, and reached 30 gr. of the tincture in one dose. Slowly he became pale, agitated, and discontented. He wasted away. Hallucination set in, and his state grew worse until disorders of the intelligence appeared. As he continued to increase the doses he fell into idiocy and died in a state of mental confusion.

THE LOCO HERBS
In accordance with a generally acknowledged law, substances with the property of evoking a particular state of well-being at the same time give rise to the imperative necessity of frequently renewing the application of the substance in question. This law also applied to animals, as I have proved by personal experiments with morphia on pigeons. In this respect singular observations have been made in America and Australia of certain plants of the family of papillionacew, which have hitherto been neglected from the chemical standpoint.
Horses, oxen, and sheep which have for some time eaten Astragalus mollissimus Torr., in the prairies of Texas, New Mexico, Dakota, Colorado, Montana, etc., exhibit a state of mental excitation and also become the victims of illusions, which cause the animal, for instance, to jump with an enormous expenditure of energy over a small object seen on the ground." If an arm is suddenly lifted before their eyes the intoxicated animals fall down as if paralyzed with fright. They turn round in circles or do other similar things. In horses other sense-illusions are also produced. The animals behave in such a manner that we must conclude that a special state of mental disorder is present similar to the state of man under the influence of alcohol or other substances. This state lasts for months. During this time the animals refuse to take any other kind of food and greedily seek to procure their old fodder, like the morphinist his morphia. This phase of excitation is succeeded by physical decay to which the animals succumb. This is the cause of great losses in cattle breeding.
Swainsonia galegifolia, R. Br., acts in the same way. The intoxicated animals, called in Australia indigo-eaters, keep aloof from the rest of the herd, exhibit disorders of the brain, troubles of vision, etc. They refuse to eat grass and only take this toxic herb. In this case also grave and deadly complications set in.
Oxytropis lamberti produces hallucinations and other states of excitation in horses and oxen.
Of the Aragullus those which occur as shrubs have a very pronounced action, for instance, Aragallus spicatus, Rydb. (white loco weed), Aragallus besseyi, Rydb., A. cagopus. It is enough for a horse or a sheep to consume on a single occasion a large quantity of this shrub to render it an incurable slave to the passion as long as the plant is accessible. Indeed, one such animal may induce a whole flock to eat Aragallus. Younger animals especially become subject to this craving: the older ones more rarely. If Aragallus-eaters are kept in confinement they are cured of the loco-disease. The course of this is as follows: the animals at first manifest an increase of vitality and then gradually general apathy. They stagger like drunkards, and may be seen for days on end standing torpidly in the same place from where it is difficult to move them.
Certain effects of our common broon, Sarothamnus scoparius , are known which remind one of those loco. The peculiar short-tailed sheep of the heaths of North Germany, especially the Luneburger Heide (Heidschnucken) , have a great preference for it. For this reason it is frequently planted on the heath and the sheep are slowly driven through these plantations, for too much is very injurious. The plant acts on the heart like red foxglove. Some animals, the "drunkards," devour it ravenously and fall into a state of excitation succeeded by complete unconsciousness. In this state they are said to fall an easy prey to foxes or flocks of crows.