hallucinations, a feeling of ease and well-being, muscular 
incoordination, drowsiness, a staggering gait or difficulty 
in walking, emotional excesses, laughter, incoherent and 
uncontrolled speech, and mydriasis. The effects following 
ingestion are always of short duration. 
It is of significance that the description of Paneolus- 
intoxication by Douglas (5) and Krieger (12) is practi¬ 
cally identical with that given by the Mazatec Indians 
and with descriptions found in early Spanish accounts 
of the use of teonanacatl among the Aztecs. 
III. Historical background of teonanacatl 
The first attempt to identify teonanacatl botanically 
was made in 1915, when Safford (18,19) published his 
conclusions that the so-called “mushroom” was, in real¬ 
ity, a part of the cactus Lophophora Williamsii (Lem.) 
Coulter and, notwithstanding the numerous independent 
reports and descriptions in literature, was not a fungus. 
After a careful study of herbarium specimens, Safford 
failed to find a Mexican mushroom with narcotic or in¬ 
toxicating properties. Safford (19) states: “Three cen¬ 
turies of investigation have failed to reveal an endemic 
fungus used as an intoxicant in Mexico, nor is such a fun¬ 
gus mentioned either in works on mycology or pharma- 
cography; yet the belief prevails even now that there is 
a narcotic Mexican fungus. .This induced him to 
search among other plants and plant products for some¬ 
thing which the early writers or the Indians might have 
confused with a dried fungus. He believed that the dried, 
brown, discoidal head (mescal button) of the spineless 
peyote-cactus (Lophophora Williamsii) resembled a 
dried mushroom so remarkably that, at first glance, it will 
even deceive a mycologist” (19). Peyote was used by the 
Aztecs as a religious narcotic during this same period, and 
^e symptoms of intoxication were described as some- 
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