Discover the Origins of a Psychedelic Drug Synthesized by a Swiss Chemist Who Claimed It ‘Found and Called Me’

When chemist Albert Hofmann moved to small, straight-laced Basel, Switzerland, in 1929, he had no intention of becoming the first man to synthesize, ingest and record his experimentations with lysergic acid diethylamide, the psychedelic drug commonly known as LSD that became a countercultural touchstone in the following decades.

“I did not choose LSD,” he later recalled. “LSD found and called me.”

Really, LSD was just an unremarkable side product of his main research developing a respiratory and circulatory drug derived from ergot, a fungus found in rotting rye, for the pharmaceutical wing of Swiss chemical company Sandoz.

In the Middle Ages, ergot was considered a poisonous scourge, causing spasms, gangrene and death if ingested in significant quantities through rye. St. Anthony’s fire, as ergotism was then known, left millions of patients writhing with hallucinations and burning sensations. These dramatic and frightening symptoms of ergotism even inspired accusations of witchcraft.

But in small doses, ergot had useful medicinal qualities, including as an aid in childbirth and abortion. The trick for chemists was to chemically isolate and purify ergot’s beneficial components while avoiding its deadly side effects.

Earlier research at the Rockefeller Institute in New York had isolated lysergic acid, a common compound in all ergot alkaloids. Hofmann’s task was to add other compounds to stabilize lysergic acid and create an analeptic drug to improve respiration and blood circulation. He would then test each compound on animals and record the effects.

On November 16, 1938, the 32-year-old chemist tested the 25th combination, an amalgam of lysergic acid and diethylamine, an ammonia derivative. He called it LSD-25 for short. The compound made the test animals restless and twitchy, but Hofmann and other researchers noted nothing else out of the ordinary.

“The new substance … aroused no special interest in our pharmacologists and physicians,” Hofmann later wrote. “Testing was therefore discontinued.”

That was that, and for five years, LSD-25 was left on the “ash heap of pharmaceutical history,” as journalist Tom Shroder wrote in Acid Test. In the meantime, Hofmann synthesized and explored other successful lysergic acid compounds, eventually creating hydergine, a circulatory drug that increases blood flow to the brain.

But something about the experiments and the animals’ odd reactions to LSD-25 stuck with Hofmann. In 1943, he decided to synthesize it again.

As he worked, he was interrupted by strange sensations. “I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness,” Hofmann later wrote in a note to his supervisor. “At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination.”

As he entered a “dreamlike state,” he continued, “I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away.”

Hofmann had unknowingly ingested a small amount of LSD-25 through the skin of his fingertips, experiencing the first acid trip in human history.

Three days later, he began his intentional self-experimentation with LSD, only telling his lab assistant about his unofficial research into the compound’s psychedelic effects. Although he continued to work with LSD in the lab, testing it on chimpanzees and small fish, he also experimented privately and in the company of friends.

Never, though, did Hofmann predict LSD would reach the countercultural status and widespread usage it has today. It was no accident that Hofmann synthesized LSD on this day in 1938, but the global effects it would have on art, psychiatry and culture were thoroughly beyond his fingertips.

Eli Wizevich | | READ MORE

Eli Wizevich is a history correspondent for Smithsonian. He studied history at the University of Chicago and previously wrote for the El Paso Times.