Heffter, Arthur

German chemist Arthur Heffter identifies mescaline as the chemical responsible for peyote s hallucinogenic effects. 

But there is another side to peyote—its use as a recreational or street drug. In 1897, Arthur Heffter, a German chemist, was the first to identify mescaline as the chemical responsible for peyote s hallucinogenic effects. It was the first hallucinogenic compound synthesized. At the time, the science community wanted to know what chemical would cause hallucinations in oth-... 

The scientific examination of peyote stimulated by Lewin s enthusiasm resulted in the isolation of the principal psychoactive component in 1897. Arthur Heffter, Lewin s colleague and rival, made this identification by systematically ingesting a number of alkaloid "fractions made from peyote as in the case of psilocybin later, animal testing had been inconclusive as to their various psychoactivities. Heffter named the isolate compound"mezcalin (which soon became "mescaline ) and reported that "mescaline hydrochloride, 0.15 g, produces a pattern of symptoms which differs in only a few respects from the one obtained with the drug (peyote). ... 

Most of the alkaloids found in peyote have never been tried on humans in pure form. Only four of these besides mescaline have been described subjectively. Much of this work was done by Arthur Heffter, who identified mescaline back in 1897. In 1977, Alexander Shulgin summarized the human tests at a conference in San Francisco ... 

In contrast, mescaline [104] is an exogenous arylethylamine from the Mexican cactus species Peyote (Aztec "root that excites" Lophophora williamsii), which causes visual hallucinations, and which had already been used by the indigenous inhabitants of Mexico in the pre-Columbian era as a narcotic for their ritual festivals (Fig. 6.34). In 1896, mescaline was isolated for the first time from Lophophora williamsii by Arthur Heffter (1859-1925). In 1919, Ernst Spath (1886-1846) recognised its structural relationship to the catecholamines. 

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