Anhalonium Lewinii (Mescal Buttons)

Anhalonium Lewinii (Mescal Buttons)

A Study of the Drug, with Especial Reference to its Physiological Action upon Man, with Report of Experiments

By D. W. Prentiss, A.M., M.D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, and Francis P. Morgan, A.B., M.D., Assistant to the Chair of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, Medical Department of Columbian University, Washington, D.C.

The attention of the medical world was first directed to the Anhalonium Lewinii by Lewin and Henning, who, in 1888, published the results of their observations upon the drug. Since that time Lewin has made the drug the subject of further study. But, besides this and some discussion as to the place in botanical classification which the Anhalonium Lewinii should occupy, little attention has been given to the drug by investigators, owing, in all probability, to the difficulty with which specimens are obtained.

In the autumn of 1894 the United States Bureau of Ethnology received, through Mr. James Mooney, agent among the Indians, an abundant supply of the mescal buttons. The investigation of its physiological effects having been intrusted to the present writers, we have embodied the results of our observations in this paper.

[A botanical description of the plant and an account of its chemical constituents — the alkaloids isolated by Lewin and by Heffter, whose identities were not yet settled — are omitted here.]

Physiological Action. In connection with the physiological action of the mescal, its use by the Indians is of great interest. The Kiowa Indians formerly for generations occupied the valley of the Rio Grande, and became addicted to the use of the mescal buttons, which, as already stated, are native in that region, and they adopted its use as a regular part of their religious ceremonies. Later on they migrated from the Rio Grande, and finally took up their abode on the Kiowa Reservation in Indian Territory, which they now occupy. They have continued the use of the mescal button in their ceremonies, however, the demand being supplied by traders, who obtain it from the valley of the Rio Grande. Complaint being made to the government authorities at Washington by missionaries and others, the buying and selling of the drug was rendered unlawful. Nevertheless, the use of the mescal has persisted among the Kiowas to the present time.

The religious ceremonies mentioned usually take place on Saturday night. The male Indians, having obtained their supply of the buttons, seat themselves in a circle around a large camp-fire, which is kept burning brightly. A button, after having been freed from the tuft of hairs, is put into the mouth, and, after it is thoroughly softened, it is ejected into the palm of the hand, rolled into a bolus, and then swallowed. In this way ten or twelve of the buttons, as a rule, are taken at intervals between sundown and 3 A.M. Throughout the ceremony there is no dancing or singing, but the camp-fire is kept burning brightly, and a continual beating upon drums is kept up by attendants. The Indians sit quietly in a state of reverie, the intoxication of the drug showing itself in the visions of color and other manifestations, which will be described later. They sit in this manner from sundown to noon of the next day. As the effect wears off, they get up and go about their work, it is claimed, without the slightest depression or unpleasant after-effect. Upon the day following the ceremony they carefully abstain from the use of common salt with their food; this, it seems, for a religious reason, and not because of any incompatibility of salt with the drug or its effects. This description of the manner in which the mescal buttons are used by the Indians was given to the writers by Mr. Mooney, who has several times partaken of the drug with them.

It will be noticed in the following experiments that only three to seven of the buttons were necessary to produce a marked effect, whereas the Indians take ten or twelve at one ceremony. This difference in susceptibility is undoubtedly due to the tolerance for the drug which has arisen in the Indian as a result both of his own habitual use and of the hereditary influence received by him from his progenitors.

Experiment 1

Chemist; age, twenty-seven; height, five feet five inches; weight, one hundred and twenty-three pounds.

This experiment is of value only as showing the remarkable effect of the drug upon the brain, especially the centres of vision. No record of the effect upon the bodily functions was taken.

About four and a half buttons were taken, weighing, in all, between fourteen and fifteen grammes. Between 9 and 11 P.M. three buttons were slowly chewed and swallowed. A slight nausea was noticed after the second button had been swallowed, which increased in intensity until midnight and then gradually disappeared. The following account is from the report of the subject of the experiment, taken partly from notes made by himself at the time:

"At eleven o'clock I retired to my room to prepare for bed. Before doing so, however, I noticed that on closing my eyes I could see all sorts of designs in brilliant and ever-changing colors. These visions were so pleasing that I at once decided to continue the experiment, and I placed the fourth and a part of the fifth button in my mouth. Then followed a train of delightful visions such as no human being ever enjoyed under normal conditions. My mind was perfectly clear and active; the power to concentrate my thoughts upon any desired subject was only slightly lessened; seated at my desk, I could write of my sensations and experiences; stretched out upon the bed, with closed eyes, an ever-changing panorama of infinite beauty and grandeur, of infinite variety of color and form, hurried before me. By concentrating my thoughts upon various subjects successively, the nature of the visions could be determined and considerable control exercised over the time that they remained in view. Perhaps the most pleasing of all the visions of the night were brought to view by my voluntarily thinking intently of the production of Kiralfy's 'America,' as given two years ago. Indeed, during the passage of this and many other visions before my enraptured mental gaze, my pleasure so far passed the more ordinary realms of delight as to bring me to that high ecstatic state in which our exclamations of enjoyment become involuntary. I truly thought that I had experienced great pleasure upon many previous occasions, but the experience of this night was one quite unique in this regard in the history of a lifetime. The tendency of every feature of the experience to prove a source of pleasure was quite remarkable. Efforts to fix the attention upon some subject which should give rise to unpleasant visions resulted in the appearance of myriads of horrible crawling monsters and seas of grewsome forms of human face and body which would cause the ordinarily sensitive human being to shudder. But under the influence of the mescal it merely added another item to the list of the inexpressible delights of my remarkable night's experience."

Besides the visions mentioned, the loss of conception of time and space was a marked feature of the experiment. About 4 A.M. the effects of the drug began to pass off, and had entirely disappeared by evening. During the day slight depression was experienced with inability to sleep until 9 P.M. Careful chemical examination of the urine passed during the experiment disclosed the presence of a considerable quantity of at least one of the alkaloids of the drug.

Experiment 2

Reporter; age, twenty-four; height, five feet eleven inches; weight, one hundred and fifty-eight pounds. In preparation for this experiment the buttons were ground to a coarse powder, and were administered in wafer-paper, the subject having previously found it impossible to chew and swallow them after the manner of the Indians without emesis.

At the beginning of the experiment the pulse was found to be 108 and the other bodily functions normal. The height of the pulse was due to the unfortunate fact that he had taken a glass of whiskey with his supper, a short time before.

Between 11.30 P.M. and 2.30 A.M. seven buttons were taken at regular intervals... At 3 A.M. began the period of intoxication and full effects of the drug. During this time, which lasted until about 7 A.M., he reclined lazily in his chair, disinclined to make the slightest movement. His eyelids drooped, and he scarcely moved his lips and jaw in articulating. His pupils were dilated. There was no exhilaration, but a tendency to reverie. He noticed a fine tremor of the extremities and a rumbling in the ears. He lost conception of time, the intervals between his words and sentences seeming inordinately long.

Besides these constant symptoms, which persisted during the experiment, another set came on in paroxysms or periods, which would last a varying length of time — from one to five or six minutes or more. The intervals between these periods also varied in length very much. During each paroxysm of this sort he had visions of ever-changing and gorgeously colored objects, forms, and designs in motion. "The first sensations that followed my taking the drug came upon thoughtlessly closing my eyes. Instantly there sprang into the field of view a host of little tubes of shining light, down which green and red balls the size of peas were constantly rolling. The tubes of light bent themselves into the shape of letters, but they would spell nothing, and, slowly curving themselves into grotesque shapes, began to revolve rapidly, the green and red balls going in the opposite direction with even greater velocity. All the field of view between these silent wheels was filled in with a shifting mass of green. The colors were wonderful. They were the colors of the spectrum intensified as though bathed in the fiercest sunlight. No words can give an idea of their intensity or of their ceaseless, persistent motion. The figures constantly changed in form and color, but always remained a series of fantastic curves, revolving rapidly back and forth upon their own axis. The forms changed through rich arabesques, Syrian carpet patterns, and plain geometric figures, and with each new form came a new flush of color, every shade appearing, from pure white to deepest purple. When the eyes opened and the light was turned up, the visions faded like stars going out in daylight, and the room, tables, chairs, and all surroundings came back into real existence and within reach of the hands."

During these paroxysms he also experienced difficulty in enunciation, and was frequently at loss for a word with which to express his thoughts. He also seemed to have a double personality — to be outside of himself looking at himself. At such times, also, a marked symptom was a feeling of great distrust and resentment which he exhibited towards those who were making the experiment with him. He realized his "mental inferiority," and firmly believed that we were secretly laughing at his condition. He believed that we intended to kill him, and for this reason he refused to take the eighth button at 3.30 A.M. He has since stated that the drug made him perfectly "insane" in this particular, and that he would have attempted violence had it not seemed to him too much trouble in his lazy and depressed condition. Between the paroxysms he had no such feeling, and apologized for the feeling which he realized he could not help.

At about 7 A.M. the paroxysms and all symptoms began to diminish in intensity, and had entirely disappeared at 7 P.M. During the day he was troubled with some disturbance of vision, occipital headache, sense of dual personality, and tendency to recurrence of the visions and "lapses of mind"; but he managed to do a day's work.

[Experiments 3, 4 and 5, further dosing trials on the same two subjects and a third, recording pulse, pupil and muscular effects in clinical detail, are omitted.]

The production of visions is the most interesting of the physiological effects of the Anhalonium Lewinii, as shown by these experiments. The visions ranged from ill-defined flashes of color to most beautiful figures, forms, landscapes, dances — in fact, there seemed to be absolutely no limit to the variety of visions which the drug could produce. They could in but few cases be seen with the eyes open, but upon closing them an ever-changing panorama appeared. The predominating feature of the visions was the color effects, although the figures, forms, etc., were in themselves sources of pleasure and admiration. Drumming, or otherwise marking regular time, enhanced the beauty and variety of the objects seen. In two cases the visions were under the control of the will, and in one case they were subject to the suggestion of others. The amount of pleasure derived from the drug seemed to vary inversely with the amount of muscular depression present.

[A comparison of mescal's action with that of opium, alcohol, cannabis indica and cocaine, and the authors' closing remarks distinguishing the drug from the fermented Mexican liquor also called "mescal," are omitted.]