Effects of Anhelonium Lewinii

Remarks on the Effects of Anhelonium Lewinii (The Mescal Button)

By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D., LL.D. Edin., Honorary Member British Medical Association; Honorary Fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society.

The history of the use of mescal by the Indians of New Mexico is very well known in the United States, and especially through the valuable papers of Dr. Prentiss, of Washington, D.C. These so interested me that I asked him to favour me with some of the extract. Profiting by his kindness, I made a trial of the drug on May 24th, 1896, by taking it as I shall now relate.

At 12 noon of a busy morning I took fully ⅓ drachm of an extract of which each drachm represented one mescal button. I had in a half-hour a sense of great gastric discomfort, and later of distension. At 1 p.m. I took a little over a drachm. Between 2 and 3 p.m. I noted my face as flushed; the pupils were dilated midway, the pulse 80 and strong. I had a slight sense of exhilaration, a tendency to talk, and now and then I misplaced a word. The knee jerk and station were normal. Between 2 and 4 o'clock I had outside of my house two consultations, and saw several patients. I observed that with a pleasing sense of languor there was an unusual amount of physical endurance. I went rather quietly, taking two stairs at a time and without pause, to the fourth storey of an hotel, and did not feel oppressed or short of breath. This is akin to the experience, I learn, of the mescal-eating Indians, and to that of many white men.

Meanwhile my stomach was more uncomfortable, and I saw the first evidence of any change in my colour records. On closing my eyes (while in my carriage), I held longer than usual any bright object just seen. As to this, however, I am not as sure as I am concerning the later phenomena. About 4.10 p.m. I drove home, and after taking half an ounce of extract in three doses I lay on a lounge and read, becoming steadily more conscious, at first of a left frontal pain (not severe) and soon after of a dull occipital ache felt on both sides and at or about the occipital bosses. Yawning at times, sleepy, deliciously at languid ease, I was clearly in "the land where it is always afternoon." At 4.30 p.m., rising to make notes, I became aware that a transparent, violet haze was about my pen point, a tint so delicate as at times to seem doubtfully existent.

At this stage of the mescal intoxication I had a certain sense of the things about me as having a more positive existence than usual. It is not easy to define what I mean, and at the time I searched my vocabulary for phrase or word which should fitly state my feeling. It was vain.

At this time, also, I had a decisive impression that I was more competent in mind than in my every-day moods. I seemed to be sure of victoriously dealing with problems. This state of mind may be easily matched in the condition of some men when pretty far gone in alcohol intoxication. My own mood was gently flattering — a mere consciousness of power, with meanwhile absolute control of every faculty. I wrote a long letter of advice dealing with a rather doubtful diagnosis, and on reading it over was able to see that it was neither better nor worse than my average letter. Yet the sense of increased ability was so notable that, liking to test it, and with common-sense disbelief in its flattery, I took up a certain paper on psychology, which a week before I had laid down in despair. I grieve to say that it was less to be comprehended than ever. My ignorance would have remained bliss had I not made the experiment. I next tried to do a complicated sum, but soon discovered that my ordinary inefficiency as to figures was not really increased.

A mood is like a climate and cannot be reasoned with. I continued to have for some two hours this elated sense of superiority. I was for this while in that condition in which some people permanently abide.

The further test of writing a few lines of verse was tried. I found there was much effort needed. I lay down again about 5.20, observing that the outer space field seemed to be smoky. Just at this time, my eyes being closed, I began to see tiny points of light, like stars or fire flies, which came and went in a moment. My palms were now tingling, my face a little flushed. About 5.40 the star points became many, and then I began to observe something like fragments of stained glass windows. The glass was not very brilliant, but the setting, which was irregular in form, seemed to be made of incessantly flowing sparkles of pale silver, now going here, now there, to and fro, like, as I thought, the inexplicable rush and stay and reflux of the circulation seen through a lens. These window patterns were like fragments coming into view and fading.

Hoping for still better things in the way of colour, I went upstairs, lay down in a darkened room and waited. In a few minutes the silver stars were seen again, and later I found that these always preceded any other more remarkable visions.

The Visions

The display which for an enchanted two hours followed was such as I find it hopeless to describe in language which shall convey to others the beauty and splendour of what I saw. I shall limit myself to a statement of a certain number of the more definite visions thus projected on the screen of consciousness.

During these two hours I was generally wide awake. I was comfortable, save as to certain gastric conditions, [the remainder of this sentence, and the two that follow it, are illegible: the scan is disordered at this point].

Especially at the close of my experience I have been for a while in the interval between the waking state and that of sleep — the "predormitum," when we are apt to dream half-controlled stories; but of this I am not very sure. As a rule, I was on guard with every power of observation and reflection in full activity.

My first vivid show of mescal colour effects came when I saw the stars, and then, of a sudden, here and there delicate floating films of colour — usually delightful pale purples and pinks. These came and went — now here, now there. Then an abrupt rush of countless points of white light swept across the field of view, as if the unseen millions of the Milky Way were to flow a sparkling river before the eye. In a minute this was over and the field was dark. Then I began to see zigzag lines of very bright colours, like those seen in some megrims. I tried to fix the place and relation of these tints, but the changes were such as to baffle me. One was an arch of angled lines of red and green, but of what else I could not determine. It was in rapid, what I may call minute, motion.

The tints of intense green and red shifted and altered, and soon were seen no more. Here, again, was the wonderful loveliness of swelling clouds of more vivid colours gone before I could name them, and, sometimes rising from the lower field, and very swiftly altering in colour tones from pale purples and rose to greys, with now and then a bar of level green or orange intense as lightning and as momentary.

When I opened my eyes all was gone at once. Closing them I began after a long interval to see for the first time definite objects associated with colours. The stars sparkled and passed away. A white spear of grey stone grew up to huge height, and became a tall, richly finished Gothic tower of very elaborate and definite design, with many rather worn statues standing in the doorways or on stone brackets. As I gazed every projecting angle, cornice, and even the face of the stones at their joinings were by degrees covered or hung with clusters of what seemed to be huge precious stones, but uncut, some being more like masses of transparent fruit. These were green, purple, red, and orange; never clear yellow and never blue. All seemed to possess an interior light, and to give the faintest idea of the perfectly satisfying intensity and purity of these gorgeous colour-fruits is quite beyond my power. All the colours I have ever beheld are dull as compared to these.

As I looked, and it lasted long, the tower became of a fine mouse hue, and everywhere the vast pendant masses of emerald green, ruby reds, and orange began to drip a slow rain of colours. All this while nothing was at rest a moment. The balls of colour moved tremulously. The tints became dull, and then, at once, past belief vivid; the architectural lines were all active with shifting tints. The figures moving shook the long hanging lines of living light, and then, in an instant, all was dark.

After an endless display of less beautiful marvels I saw that which deeply impressed me. An edge of a huge cliff seemed to project over a gulf of unseen depth. My viewless enchanter set on the brink a huge bird claw of stone. Above, from the stem or leg, hung a fragment of some stuff. This began to unroll and float out to a distance which seemed to me to represent Time as well as immensity of Space. Here were miles of rippled purples, half transparent, and of ineffable beauty. Now and then soft golden clouds floated from these folds, or a great shimmer went over the whole of the rolling purples, and things, like green birds, fell from it, fluttering down into the gulf below. Next, I saw clusters of stones hanging in masses from the claw toes, as it seemed to me miles of them, down far below into the underworld of the black gulf.

This was the most distinct of my visions. Incautiously I opened my eyes, and it was gone. A little later I saw interlaced and numberless hoops in the air all spinning swiftly and all loaded with threaded jewels or with masses of colour in long ropes of clustered balls. I began to wonder why I saw no opals, and some minutes after each of these circles, which looked like a boy's hoop, became huge opals; if I should say fluid opals it would best describe what was — however, like nothing earthly.

I set myself later to seeing if I could conjure figures, for so far I had seen nothing human in form, nor any which seemed alive. I had no luck at this, but a long while after I saw what seemed a shop with apothecaries' bottles, but of such splendour — green, red, purple — as are not outside of the pharmacies of fairy land. On the left wall was pinned by the tail a brown worm of perhaps a hundred feet long. It was slowly rotating, like a catherine wheel, nor did it seem loathly. As it turned, long green and red tentacles fell this way and that. On a bench near by two little dwarfs, made, it seemed, of leather, were blowing through long glass pipes of green tint, which seemed to me to be alive, so intensely, vitally green were they. But it were vain to find in words what will describe these colours. Either they seemed strangely solid, or to possess vitality. They still linger visibly in my memory, and left the feeling that I had seen among them colours unknown to my experience. Their variety and strange juxtapositions were indeed fascinating for one to whom colour is more than it is to most men; nor is it possible to describe the hundredth of what I saw.

I was at last conscious of the fact that at moments I was almost asleep, and then wide awake. In one of these magic moments I saw my last vision and the strangest. I heard what appeared to be approaching rhythmical sounds and then saw a beach, which I knew to be that of Newport. On this, with a great noise, which lasted but a moment, rolled in out of darkness wave on wave. These as they came were liquid splendours huge and threatening, of wonderfully pure green, or red or deep purple, once only deep orange, and with no trace of foam. These water hills of colour broke on the beach with myriads of lights of the same tint as the wave. This lasted some time, and while it did so I got back to more distinct consciousness, and wished the beautiful terror of these huge mounds of colour would continue.

[A boxed quotation describing a patient's ophthalmic-migraine visions, printed alongside the text on the surviving scan, interrupts the page at this point and is omitted here.]

A knock at my door caused me to open my eyes, and I lost whatever of wonder might have come after.

After dinner I ceased to be able to see any further display of interest. Now and then a purple or pink fragment appeared, but that was all. For a day after I noted the fact that my visions could be easily recalled by a memorial effort, but with less and less sharpness.

These shows are expensive. For two days I had headache, and for one day a smart attack of gastric distress. This came after the first dose, and was most uncomfortable. The experience, however, was worth one such headache and indigestion, but was not worth a second.

Dr. Prentiss and others describe mescal as causing insomnia. My first experience with the tincture was made early in the morning. I became deeply flushed by noon, but had no visions. I felt drowsy and slept very well the following night. The extract used, as stated, did make me sleepless up to 4 a.m., but neither restless nor uneasy.

[Two pages of the surviving scan (British Medical Journal, pp. 1627–1628) are badly disordered here: columns of text are out of their true reading order and some lines duplicate or interrupt one another. In the damaged span, Mitchell compares his mescal visions to the visual auras of ophthalmic migraine, quotes at length a case of his own reported in 1887 and a further case described by Dr. de Schweinitz, and reflects on the involuntary character of the visions and their relation to memory, before returning to his conclusions below.] I see no obvious therapeutic uses for mescal in massive doses. It is yet to be tested by continuous employment in moderate amounts, and may be of value.

I sought so to limit the influence of mescal as to remain in full possession of all my faculties. The larger doses secure, as Dr. Prentiss has shown, more remarkable results, but may lessen the power to observe and to comment. I should dread a little lest excessive amounts might leave too permanent effects. In fact, I constantly carried for days a quite vivid image of one of these jewel clusters, seeing it mentally whenever my mind was turned upon the subject of my visions.

I could match this also by a painful experience of some years ago, but I have said enough to show the great interest of this drug for physicians and psychologists. I predict a perilous reign of the mescal habit when this agent becomes attainable. The temptation to call again the enchanting magic of my experience will, I am sure, be too much for some men to resist after they have once set foot in this land of fairy colours, where there seems to be so much to charm and so little to excite horror or disgust.

Were I to take mescal again I should dictate to a stenographer all that I saw and in due order. No one can hope to remember for later record so wild a sequence of colour and of forms. But since to talk does not disturb these visions, a perfect account might easily be given. No one has told us what visions come to the Red man. I should like to know if those of the navvy would be like those of the artist, and above all, what those born blind could relate; and, too, such as are born colour blind. In fact, a valuable range of experiment is here to be laid open.

Dr. Eshner's Account

I append to my own statement that of Dr. Eshner, one of the clinical staff of the Infirmary for Nervous Disease. It will be seen that, although the symptoms were not unlike my own, there were some interesting differences. There was nausea, whereas I had none; there was no distinct headache, whilst mine was notable. In general the experience was in Dr. Eshner's case more unpleasant than in mine or in those Dr. Prentiss has reported, neither were the visions so remarkable nor the colours as vivid as were those I saw. It is as well to add, as concerns my own statement, that when twice in my life I have had to take hypodermic injections of morphine for several successive nights, the drug ceased to cause sleep after the third night. Later it gave rise to visions of very remarkable character, which I have elsewhere described. These were seen whether or not the eyes were closed, if only the room in which I lay was entirely dark.

Dr. Eshner writes me as follows: From doses varying from 10 to 50 drops I noticed no effect other, perhaps, than slightly diminished frequency of the pulse. Thus, an hour after taking 20 drops the pulse had fallen from 80 to 70. Fifteen minutes after a dose of 50 drops the pulse had fallen from 82 to 69, although in fifteen minutes more it was again 74. The same effect was noticed after larger doses.

On May 30th, at 3.50 p.m., with a pulse of 78, I took a fluid drachm. At 4.25 p.m. my pulse was 73, and I took another fluid drachm. At 4.45 my pulse was 65, and I took a third fluid drachm. At 5 p.m., with a pulse of 61, I took 40 minims, all of the preparation I had left. At 5.15 my pulse was 59; at 5.30, 64; and at 6.30, 65.

As the constitutional facts appeared, I found I could not keep at serious work; I felt some distraction, and lacked my usual mental concentration. I soon began to feel badly, lapsing into a condition of general malaise, with not a little prostration, and had to give up any attempt at work, however small. I found some comfort in lying down, and when my eyes closed I became conscious of a series of visual impressions, in most of which colour sensations were present. The pictures were characteristically kaleidoscopic, particularly as regards uniformity of arrangement. They changed frequently at times, like lantern pictures on a screen. The designs were various; some were Oriental, with stars and crescents, and points of light interspersed; others were mosaic in arrangement; some were screen-like; some fern-like; some showed chased figures. Neither the images nor the light were very vivid, although as a rule quite distinct. The intensity at times appeared related to the vigour with which the eyes were closed.

At about 6.30 p.m. I arose and attempted to eat a little, but failed. Nausea was quite pronounced, and there was total loss of appetite. At no time did vomiting occur. The visions were repeated. I had intended going out in the evening, and, in the hope of gaining relief, I equipped myself for a bicycle ride, and started off, despite my langour and general depression. I made my way to the Park without the slightest difficulty, and at Girard Bridge met and spoke to an acquaintance, stopped under the bridge to view the Memorial Day illumination, and went on. I rode in all about eight miles, going down a fairly steep declivity with ease and descending a longer and perhaps steeper declivity with almost equal ease. I perspired en route, not unduly, but perceptibly. I felt that my pupils must be dilated from the brilliancy of the light, with prismatic radiations and the large amount that entered my eyes. I think ocular accommodation may also have been affected, although the visual langour may have been only a part of the general langour. Vision seemed not alert. I was in a state of placid indifference, free from enthusiasm, free from aspiration, without spontaneity. I imagine there was a little dryness of the secretions of the mouth and throat, because my voice appeared a little deeper and fuller than usual. I was scarcely conscious of ordinary movement, and felt as though I could scarcely make any extraordinary movement, although I was conscious of the necessity of making the effort, and of the increased exertion necessary in mounting the hill of which I have spoken. In general, however, I seemed to go on by virtue of my own momentum. In a figurative way, I felt as if I were of the same density as the medium in which I floated, so that I would yield to slight external physical impulses. The feeling is one that I can best describe as muscular insensibility or motor anaesthesia. I was a little indifferent as to how I rode, yet not careless nor without a sense of responsibility, but I made little effort to avoid the rougher places, and appreciated very little jolting. I sustained my equilibrium perfectly, and was not compelled to dismount other than intentionally. I rode slowly down Broad Street by the side of a four-in-hand, and listened with enjoyment to the strains of the trumpeter. I met a little messenger boy on a bicycle who made a ludicrous impression on me, and whom at his request I helped to a match without dismounting.

I reached home about half-past nine, and called at the house of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and in his absence left a note for him. I was more fortunate in finding Dr. J. K. Mitchell at home, who noticed the deepening in my voice, dilatation of the pupils, some injection of the eyes, a little flushing of the face, increased knee-jerks and active muscle-jerks, a heart beat of 72, and, as he thought, some evident effort in speech. My own feeling was one of partial release of inhibition, of relaxation of restraint and of repression. The state was not a pleasurable one, but rather a helpless one. I could write freely and with ease about what I had passed through and was passing through, and experienced a certain freedom and fluency of expression.

I sat up and read from about ten until half-past twelve, the visions returning whenever I closed my eyes. Now I was again able to see all sorts of new designs, fresco work, porcelain decorations, tapestry figures, intricate laces, parquetry, diagrams, various kinds of scroll work, etc. I endeavoured to picture an American flag, but only partially succeeded after I had retired, and then my flag was furled. I saw coats of arms and shields and the like. All colours were represented. I looked especially for blue, as Dr. Mitchell had told me that he had seen all colours but blue, and I was successful. At one time I saw various shadows of green, and at another especially purples, violets, lilacs, etc. In none of the images were people or animals or other objects than designs represented.

As I read I was easily pleased. At this time I experienced [a few words illegible]. I then lay down for half or three-quarters of an hour, and a sense of nausea, with a suggestion of burning and weight in the umbilical region; but this was gone by the following morning.

Before going to bed I partook of a sandwich and some milk. I found the sense of taste benumbed. I was not able to fall asleep for some time. My sense of hearing seemed to be more receptive, but less acute. The condition might be described as an impairment of the auditory accommodation comparable to the corresponding ocular state. My breathing failed specially to attract my attention, but seemed shallow. I was conscious of pain on being pinched, [several words illegible in the scan] especially when received from a distance.

The night was a restless one, with some snatches of sleep of varying length, but I arose with ease at the usual hour, feeling not much the worse for my late experiences, and not at all sleepy. There remained a sense of fulness in the head, but no other reminder. I partook of my usual breakfast with ordinary relish. The preparation had a disagreeable nauseous taste, with suggestion of pungency.