106 Kansas Academjj of Science. 



center of the tipi, the men sitting around it. The fire is enclosed in a 

 crescent-shaped mound, on the top of which is placed the sacred peyote. 

 Following an opening prayer, each participant receives, chews and swal- 

 lows four peyotes, after which the sacred songs begin, with accompani- 

 ment of drum and rattle. Each man. in turn, sings four songs, and the 

 singing is kept up all night, varied by intervals of prayer and other 

 distributions of peyote. At midnight a kind of a baptismal service takes 

 place. The number of 'buttons' eaten by each individual during the night 

 is from ten to forty or more. The drug produces a kind of spii'itual 

 exaltation, said to be different from that of any other drug, and without 

 any reaction. During the ceremony the sick person to be prayed for is 

 brought in, and he is allowed to eat one or more specially consecrated 

 'buttons.' When daylight comes the morning-star song is sung. The 

 women then pass around the sacred food and the ceremony ends with the 

 'meat song.' After a season of friendly talk, followed by a dinner, the 

 participants disperse." 



In order to investigate the toxicity of the buttons, which were 

 sent us as authentic material, 200 grammes of the powdered 

 buttons were extracted by suitable solvents in order to remove 

 all the physiological activity from the fibrous material. The 

 solution thus obtained was purified repeatedly by the use of 

 immiscible solvents, such as chloroform, ether, etc., until the 

 solution was practically free from inert material and contained 

 the active principles in the most concentrated form. Only a 

 few milligrammes of the concentrated extractive were obtained 

 from 200 grammes of the drug. Hence this was extremely 

 concentrated. 



The method of Heffter for separating the principles thus far 

 isolated from the buttons is as follows : 



The coarsely powdered drug is digested several times with 

 70 per cent alcohol. The alcohol is distilled from the united 

 extracts, filtered to separate resinous material, then made alka- 

 line with ammonia and shaken out with chloroform. The alka- 

 loids are then extracted from the chloroform solution with di- 

 luted sulphuric acid, the alkaloid precipitated with ammonia, 

 and the precipitated alkaloids treated with ether, which dis- 

 solved "anhalonin," "pellotin" and "lophophorin," while "mey- 

 calin," "anhalonidin" and "anhalamin" remain. The insoluble 

 alkaloids are converted to sulphates and crystallized. The first 

 crystallization product consists principally of meycalin sul- 

 phate, from which meycalin can be separated by making alka- 

 line, shaking out with chloroform and recrystallizing. Anhal- 

 ondidin is separated and purified with difficulty, but can be 



