I can’t stop thinking about Albert Hofmann. He was a Swiss research chemist who began working for the pharmaceutical company Sandoz during the 1930s and had quite a fruitful career for many decades to come. But let’s face it, leading an accomplished career in pharmaceutical chemistry is no way to achieve widespread fame. Had Albert only synthesized drugs like methylergonovine (which causes muscles in the uterus to contract and is used to treat postpartum bleeding even to this day) I would not know his name. No, the reason Hofmann is a minor legend is thanks to a single experiment, a self experiment conducted on April 19th, 1943. Albert measured out 0.25 mg of a failed respiratory stimulant called LSD, by his flawed estimation a tiny dose, and downed it with a glass of water. The proceeding hours were eventful to say the least and featured the single most terrifying bike ride of Albert’s entire life.
The discovery of a hallucinogen so unbelievably potent that mere micrograms could send someone to another world for half a day was of great interest to many. At first neurologists and psychologists, then artists, and finally stoners and hippies. By the 50s, LSD was fast becoming a sensation with this latter crowd. Love it or hate it, everyone, especially in the United States, had thoughts on the matter. The thought on the mind of many legislators was to ban it. Even so, popular interest remained albeit diminished and by 1985 psychedelic enthusiasts were celebrating the anniversary of Hofmann’s experiment as a holiday called bicycle day.
I first learned of this story from some stonerish friends in college who were themselves very much of a mind to celebrate bicycle day. They seemed to hold a certain awe for the story although their telling of it lacked detail. The result has been that, several years later, I returned to the matter after happening across a PDF of Hofmann’s memoir which had fallen off the back of a truck. Convenient eh?
The story begins in 1938 when LSD was first synthesized. Albert Hofmann had no intention of creating a potent psychedelic. Rather, he was attempting to create a compound which stimulated breathing. These types of drugs are called analeptics and can be used in treating overdoses of sedatives like phenobarbital. As Albert correctly predicted, LSD and a then popular analeptic, nikethamide, share some structural similarities. Perhaps this meant they would share pharmacological similarities too. Nope! When the pharmacologists tested it on rats there were no respiratory effects whatsoever. Drug discovery, even now and especially then, is a bit like waking up to pee in an unfamiliar house. Lots of bumping and stumbling around and every so often you make a mess.
Hofmann hadn’t yet made his mess but decided to put aside analeptics for a time. He shelved the project for 5 years only to return in 1943. By this date war had descended upon Europe. Thanks to his home country’s neutrality though, Hofmann was able to continue his work, more or less unabated. Certainly, some luxuries had become scarce but it’s hard to be too upset about commuting by bike when your northern neighbors are commuting by boxcar.
April 16th and Albert was at it again, making a new batch of LSD. He was hoping to synthesize something new with it but found himself feeling dizzy and restless, not quite the state of mind to be tinkering with toxic chemicals. So he returned home early to rest off the episode but upon closing his eyes was greeted, not with sleep, but brilliant parades of ever shifting imagery cascading through his imagination. It was a remarkable experience and by no means unpleasant. What could have caused it? Hofmann couldn’t be certain but the obvious explanation was that damn LSD.
Being no careless amateur, Albert swears on his honor as a chemist he did not lick his fingers, he wasn’t in that sort of habit. Maybe he absorbed some through his skin, perhaps he inhaled a droplet, or maybe he had a hangnail that day. We’ll never know for sure.
But what we can be sure of is how Albert decided to test his hypothesis. It was clear an animal model wouldn’t do. Rats can’t report weather they’re seeing pink elephants. But testing it on another person just didn’t sit well with him either. He knew it to be a risk and didn’t want to subject anyone else to it. Furthermore, aside from being “very, very cautious”, Albert was also very, very, very curious. It’s hard to be a research chemist otherwise and his natural curiosity had been piqued by that odd episode.
So it was that, At 4:00 PM on April 19th, 1943, he measured 0.25 milligrams of LSD, a nearly infinitesimal quantity, roughly the weight of a single inch long strand of human hair. At 4:20 it was bottoms up while his lab assistant, Susan Ramstein, supervised the experiment. By 5:00 Albert was convinced his drug had been the source of Friday’s mysterious bender. With much difficulty he recorded his symptoms in a notebook “Beginning dizziness, feeling of anxiety, visual distortion, symptoms of paralysis, desire to laugh.” By 6:00 he was starting to believe 0.25 milligrams hadn’t been such an infinitesimal dose after all, a thought which only intensified his aforementioned anxiety. Albert summoned up his now quite limited powers of speech to ask Susan if she could lead him home.
In a later supplement, Albert wrote my favorite entry ever written in a lab notebook “Home by bicycle. From 6:00 to circa 8:00, most severe crisis” Most severe indeed. Albert was downright deleterious believing their quick bicycle trip to be an entirety. In a moment of lucidity he had correctly assessed that his fridge was out of milk. But when his neighbor was summoned to replenish the supply, Albert was terrified to see her face distorted into the mask of an evil witch. Even so, he still drank two liters of the milk she offered. At the peak of his intoxication, Hofmann feared he was going insane. Could he ever return to the family and work which meant so much to him? Despite this overwhelming terror, when Albert’s doctor arrived, he couldn’t find anything physically ailing the poor chemist. So he sent Albert to bed and watched over him, fearing the poor man may be suicidal.
Eventually, the drug ran its course. Albert’s fears of insanity waned and once again, he slipped into that dreamlike trance of cascading imagery. In the morning he awoke reinvigorated, able to recall the previous day’s events in perfect detail. Vivid as his memories may have been, his ability to express them was anything but. A career in science doesn’t often lend itself to poetry. All the same, Hofmann was in uncannily good spirits. His breakfast was delicious, the dew sparkled more than ever, and it seemed so simple to face a day without the threat of insanity.
So should Hofmann have conducted the experiment as he did? I really don’t think so. Fantastic as the story may be, it illustrates one of the issues with self experimentation: recklessness. Insofar as Albert’s telling of events goes, he considered the experiment for two days over the weekend and never consulted anyone about what he planned to do. Other than Susan Ramstein of course. As an assistant though, she wasn’t in much of a position to push back against his suggestion. During the experiment she must have been not much less terrified than Albert himself. Hofmann only brought up the experiment to his supervisors after conducting it. It will give you some idea of the culture at the time to learn that they were more incredulous about Albert’s measurements than his unsanctioned methodology. “0.25 mg and you were seeing pink elephants? No way. Why don’t you give us 0.08 and let us see for ourselves.” They were duly impressed.
This said, I don’t mean to condemn Hofmann’s behavior altogether. Risky as it may have been, it wasn’t foolhardy. LSD was already known not to be fatally toxic in the animal testing conducted in 1938 and the culture of the time was less concerned with safety than what we see now. Not only were Albert’s bosses unconcerned with unauthorized self experiments, they were also stingy enough to refuse requests to replace the lab’s lousy fume hoods. And Albert was in a fine position to be the first volunteer in a more controlled study. He was informed, enthusiastic, and had already experienced a mild intoxication. Had Albert been conducting his experiments in the 21st century I suspect his caution would have led him to a less maverick methodology.
But 1943 didn’t see the end of Hofmann’s self experiments. For decades to come he returned, now and again, to psychedelics. He has written that recreational use of these drugs baffled him and draws a distinction between his experiments and the revelries hippies were famous for. Though I understand his desire to distance himself from irresponsible uses of the drug he invented, I am not convinced his own use wasn’t recreational either. Hofmann’s accounts of these ‘experiments’ are tucked into the back of his book. In one instance, he and his friends sat together in a comfortable room, 20 mg in to a psilocybin trip. All this, of course, for the purpose of comparing the subjective effects of psilocybin to LSD. That the experience was so enjoyable was nothing more than an accident of circumstance.
The question I keep coming back to is what if? What if Hofmann hadn’t accidentally been exposed to LSD? What if he hadn’t been quite so curious? Would the hippie movement have been unrecognizable? Would PCR have been invented decades later? Would the Beatles never write I am the walrus? What a tragedy that would be. The bicycle day experiment too, what if Hofmann had mentioned it to someone? Perhaps they would have suggested having a doctor or psycologist on call and maybe even that it should take place somewhere more comfortable than his lab. But if caution had prevailed Hofmann what kind of holiday might he have been honored with? “I swear I didn’t lick my finger” day doesn’t quite slide off the tongue like bicycle day. What I can be confident about is if any of these ‘what ifs’ had come to pass, I sure wouldn’t be thinking about Albert Hofmann.