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the symptoms of ergot poisoning, their mental disturbances being ascribed to witchcraft and political paranoia respectively. In bothoutbreaks there was evidence that the weather leading up to the harvest had been wet, a prerequisite for the formation of ergot, and evidence that the condition of sufferers improved when fed on good quality bread. In her book
Poisons of the Past
, Mary Kilbourne Matossian makes a strong case for many other medieval bouts of hallucination or mental disturbance, such as the witch persecutions, being attributable to ergot poisoning. The last major outbreak of ergot poisoning took place during 1926–27 in parts of southern Russia. 3
    The first record of ergot in a medical capacity dates from 1582 when it is mentioned in a
Herbal
, or book of remedies, as being used to stimulate childbirth. Ergot was later widely used by midwives in Europe to induce abortions and to prevent post-partum bleeding. In common with other medicinal plants, the connection between the ergot fungus and human experience is an old one, presumably pre-dating the first written accounts of its use or poisoning.
    Because of its unusual properties, chemists began to study ergot in depth and in 1918 Arthur Stoll isolated ergotamine from the fungus. This extract was marketed as Gynergen by Sandoz in 1921 and used in the same way medieval midwives had used the fungus. The majority of the ergot alkaloids have lysergic acid at their centre. By isolating lysergic acid and then re-combining it with other chemicals, new ergot derivatives could be created. Hofmann worked intensively on these combinations and in the process developed several successful new products for Sandoz. These included dihydroergotamine for the treatment of migraine, hydergine for the treatment of circulatory problems and methergine for post partum bleeding.
    Hofmann created LSD-25, the twenty-fifth permutation of lysergic acid, in November 1938. In his search for a synthesis that might lead to the discovery of a circulatory and respiratory stimulant he combined lysergic acid with Coramine, a nicotinic acid diethylamide. But Hofmann was to be disappointed. Tests on animals indicated that LSD-25 had a strong effect on the uterus but this wasn’t enough to warrant further investigation, so Hofmann abandoned further study of the compound.
    If an experimental compound failed to yield results it was usually shelved and quickly forgotten. Yet there was
something
about LSD-25 that called Hofmann back to that particular chemical compound. Five years passed but Hofmann could not forget LSD-25. In his autobiography, he wrote that eventually: “A peculiar presentiment – the feeling that this substance could possess properties other than those established in the first synthesis – induced me, five years after the first synthesis, to produce LSD-25 once again so that a sample could be given to the pharmacological department for further tests.” 4
    Hofmann’s intuition led him to synthesise LSD-25 for the second time on Friday, 16 April 1943. As he entered the final stage of the process, the point at which the drug was purified and crystallised, he began to notice unusual physical and mental sensations. He recorded his experiences shortly afterwards in a note to his colleague Professor Stoll:
    “Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated like condition, characterised by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the sunlight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colours. After some two hours, this condition faded away.” 5
    Hofmann presumed that his odd experience had been caused by the drug he was working on at the time. He couldn’t be