pound known up to the present was discovered, a com- 
pound which subsequently attained great importance 
under the name of LSD 25 (Delysid ®) in experimental 
psychiatry and recently also in psychotherapy as well. 
Lysergic acid diethylamide (formula I) was produced 
during the course of large scale investigations on semi- 
synthetic amides of lysergic acid after d-lysergic acid 
L-propanolamide-(2) (formula II), which was found to 
be identical with the natural alkaloid ergometrine (also 
known as ergonovine), had been synthesized. This was 
the first synthesis of a natural ergot alkaloid.’ After the 
discovery of the psychotomimetic activity of LSD, a 
great number of further simple lysergic acid amides were 
synthesized in our laboratories‘ so as to ascertain the re- 
lationship between chemical structure and psychic ac- 
tivity in this group of compounds. The unsubstituted 
d-lysergie acid amide (=ergine) (formula III) and the 
d-isolysergic acid amide (isoergine) (formula IV), were 
amongst these semi-synthetic analogues of LSD. Ergine, 
isoergine and ergometrine were later, as will be shown 
below, found to be active principles of ololiuhqui. 
The discovery of LSD and subsequent research in the 
tield of psychotomimetics caused the Mexican fungi to 
be brought to our laboratories. The history of the dis- 
covery of these fungi and the contribution to it by en- 
gineer Roberto J. Weitlaner and his daughter Irmgard 
Weitlaner-Johnson, the work of Reko and of Schultes, 
as well as their rediscovery by the husband and wife team 
of Valentina P. and R. Gordon Wasson in collaboration 
with the mycologist Professor Roger Heim, were de- 
scribed in the preceding article. After chemical analysis 
ina Paris laboratory had proved unsuccessful, Professor 
Heim sent a few of the hallucinogenic fungi to us in 
Basle on the assumption that the necessary conditions 
for a successful chemical investigation would be present 
[ 196 ] 
