=>Albert Hofmann, Inventor of LSD, Embarks on Final Trip <=

Albert Hofmann, Inventor of LSD, Embarks on Final Trip
He was the first person to experience an acid trip--for both good and bad
By David Biello

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD, died yesterday at the age
of 102, 
just 10 days after the 55th anniversary of his notorious bicycle trip
while 
tripping on "acid". Hofmann, who suffered a heart attack at home in Basel,

Switzerland, was the first person to synthesize lysergic acid
diethylamide, 
better known as LSD, and the first human known to experience its
mind-bending 
effects.

The drug was the 25th he created from the basic chemical ingredients of
ergot, a 
fungus that forms on rye, in his search for treatments for circulation and

respiratory problems. He re****ts in his 1979 autobiography LSD, My Problem

Child, that he became restless and dizzy when he accidentally ingested the

compound while making it—and "perceived an uninterrupted stream of
fantastic 
pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors"
for 
about two hours.

The very next day (April 19, 1943), he swallowed 0.25 milligram of the
acid to 
confirm that it had caused his odd symptoms. Overcome by dizziness and
anxiety, 
he asked an assistant to bicycle him home; once there, he writes that he
was 
overcome by feelings that he might die (prompting a later call to his 
physician), along with delusions that included perceiving a kindly
neighbor 
transformed into a malevolent witch.

Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, his employer at the time, tried to promote LSD as
a drug 
to treat psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia under the trade name 
Delysid by sending samples to psychiatrists—and the compound was briefly
used as 
the treatment du jour in conjunction with psychoanalysis.

But acid swiftly found its way into wider use among artists, writers (such
as 
Brave New World's Aldous Huxley), actors (including established movie
stars like 
Cary Grant), and rebellious teens in the 1950s and 1960s. In fact, it
became so 
popular as a way to "tune in, turn on and drop out" that in 1966 New York
State 
and California made it a crime to possess it; the U.S. government followed
suit 
in 1970.

Hofmann also manufactured a wide range of medical drugs from ergot,
including 
methergine (which is still used to halt bleeding after birth) and
hydergine 
(which improves circulation). In the psychedelic realm, he was also the
first to 
synthesize psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms 
(Psilocybe mexicana).