56 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



phenomena which had not been noted by previous observers, it may be 

 worth while to record them in full, as fairly typical of those vision- 

 producing properties which procured for this plant its divine honors.* 



The experiment took place on Good Friday, 1897, when I was 

 entirely alone in quiet chambers in the Temple, the most peaceful spot 

 in central London. I made a double infusion or decoction of three 

 mescal buttons (a single infusion is inert) and drank this, in three 

 doses, at intervals of an hour, beginning at 2 :30 p.m., two hours after 

 a light lunch. I had not touched alcohol or smoked during the day. 

 The following notes are reproduced, with trifling omissions, exactly as 

 written, during the course of the experiment. 



"The most noteworthy, almost immediate, result of the first dose 

 was that a headache which for some hours had shown a tendency to 

 aggravation was somewhat relieved. At 3 began to feel drowsy. At 

 3 :30 took another third of the infusion. My headache was speedily still 

 further lightened, and I now felt a certain consciousness of energy and 

 intellectual power. No color or other visual phenomena appeared, how- 

 ever, even when eyes were closed for several minutes. No obvious 

 increase of knee-jerk, though I seemed to be conscious of a certain 

 heightening of muscular irritability as when one has been without sleep 

 for an unusual time. Some gastric discomfort now made itself felt, but 

 was relieved (at 4 o'clock) by eating a few biscuits. At this time, for 

 the first time, there was a distinct lowering of pulse by some 6 or 8 

 beats. At 4:30 took the remaining portion of the infusion. At this 

 period, except for a very slight frontal headache and a faint sensation 

 of nausea, no abnormal phenomena had yet appeared, and I was feeling 

 on the whole better than before I began the experiment. At 5 I felt 

 slightly faint, so that it was difficult to concentrate my attention 

 while reading and I lay down on a couch; the pulse was still lower (48) 

 but no visual phenomena could be detected. At 5 :45 while lying down 

 reading I noticed (what Weir Mitchell noticed) that a pale violet 

 shadow floated over the page around the point on which my eyes were 

 fixed. Some little time earlier I had noticed that objects not in the 

 direct line of vision, such as my hand holding the book, frequently 

 tended to become obtrusive, and as it were heightened in color, mon- 

 strous and enlarged. At 6 the prevailing feeling was one of slight 

 faintness with some muscular unsteadiness; there was no marked 

 discomfort (except slight nausea) ; the headache had almost gone. No 



* I published a somewhat briefer account of this experiment in ' Mescal : a 

 New Artificial Paradise,' Contemporary Review, January, 1898. This paper also 

 contains the interesting results of an experiment on an artist friend; further 

 remarks were published in 'A Note on Mescal Intoxication,' Lancet, June 5, 

 1897. These papers attracted the attention of Dr. Walter Dixon, who made 

 many experiments on himself and has published the results in an interesting 

 article in the Journal of Physiology, September, 1899. 



