APPENDIX 6: PHYSIOLOGY OF PEYOTE

ACTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL ALKALOIDS OF LOPHOPHORA WILLIAMSII

Since the alkaloids of peyote fall into two classes with regard to physiological action, the strychnine-like (increased reflex-irritability to the point of tetanus) and the morphine-like (sedative-soporific) and since there are important ethnographic considerations concerning the supposed “sex” of peyote, we discuss the action of each alkaloid before characterizing pan-peyotl physiologically. The two groups are somewhat antagonistic in action; ethnographic indications seem to point to the earlier action of the strychnine-like alkaloids, and a delayed reaction of the morphine-like. However, the size of the dose and the continued ingestion of buttons during the night cause variations in the length of the different periods of intoxication.

The peyote-alkaloids might be arranged in a scale, with mescaline at the morphine-like extreme and lophophorine at the other: (morphine-like) mescaline, peyotline, anhaline, anhalamine, anhalonidine, anhalonine, lophophorine (strychnine-like). Peyotline, however, has a variable effect on different individuals, while anhalonine has been accounted of the morphine-like group by Rouhier.⁠[1] The color-visions so conspicuous in peyote-intoxication are chiefly produced by mescaline.⁠[2] Lophophorine is the most toxic.⁠[3] Physiologically the effects of the individual alkaloids are:⁠[4]

Mescaline: slowing of pulse, slight headache, sensation of heaviness in the limbs lasting one to several hours; heavier doses, feeling of discomfort and fullness of stomach (even when injected intravenously) in addition to the above symptoms; still heavier doses, accentuation of symptoms and appearance of color-visions.

Peyotline: in about an hour reduces the pulse approximately one-quarter the normal number of beats; two hours after ingestion, heaviness of eyelids, sensation of fatigue, aversion to all physical or mental effort; has no marked analgesic action but is a fairly good sedative and has a very appreciable hypnotic and anodyne action.

Anhaline [= hordenine]:⁠[5] exercises a paralyzing effect on the central nervous system.

Anhalamine: this has not been adequately studied physiologically. Nor have Anhalinine and Anhalidine.

Anhalonidine: only slight sleepiness and dull sensation in head; pulse not affected.

Anhalonine: produces no sensible effect, except perhaps a slight sleepiness.

Lophophorine: the most toxic, has no narcotic action; a quarter-hour after ingestion an accentuated sickening feeling in the back of the head, with hotness and blushing of face, slight pulse diminution; symptoms disappear after 40 minutes.

“In short,” says Rouhier,⁠[6] “save for anhalonidine which, in strong doses, provokes in the frog paralysis of the motor nerve-ends (which is not observed otherwise in mammals), the alkaloids of peyote act on the central nervous system.... [Mescaline] acts on the brain, which it paralyzes. [Lophophorine] is antagonistic in action to this, augmenting the irritability of the spinal cord and its elongations.... Peyotline, anhalonine and anhalonidine hold a middle place between the two preceding. They produce in the frog a soporific effect (due to the paralysis of the brain or central nervous system), followed by an effect of tetanus. Anhalonidine and anhalonine have identical physiological effects. The paralyzing effect of the former is of long duration. That of the second is much reduced and is lacking in warm-blooded animals.”

ACTION OF PAN-PEYOTL

The native use of peyote, however, involves of course the whole series of alkaloids, and we must discuss the physiological effect of pan-peyotl preparations. Since antagonistic alkaloids are at work, it is not surprising to find several stages of physiological action with the whole plant. Dixon writes:⁠[7]

The action may be divided into a preliminary stage and a stage of intoxication. In the former there is excitement, a feeling of exhilaration, and diminished kinaesthetic sensations, performances involving effort being hardly noticed; the face is flushed, and the pupils dilated; there is a tendency to talkativeness, which may become wandering later, when the patient begins to feel “lightheaded.”

This stage quickly passes away, and is followed by one of intoxication, in which there is a great inclination to lie down, although there is never any tendency to sleep. The pupils are now widely dilated, but act sluggishly to light. On attempting to walk, the gait closely resembles that in alcoholic intoxication, and in all bodily movements requiring precision, the incoördination is evident. The body is generally in a tremulous condition, the tremors showing well when the attention is fixed on anything held in the hand. Reflexes over the whole body are much increased, including the skin reflexes, although there is considerable blunting of painful and tactile sensation. Twitching of muscles occurs in various parts of the body, especially noticeable in the face, and there is a curious feeling as if the face, lips, tongue, etc., were much swollen.

As in cannabis indica, time is over-estimated, possibly as a result of the rapid flow of ideas⁠[8] and the inability to fix the attention. Perception of space is also modified,⁠[9] on one occasion giving the impression that the ground sloped away in all directions.

Perception may be considerably delayed; for example, one may look at a person one knows well, and it is only after scanning his features for what appears to the experimenter a considerable time, that recognition occurs;⁠[10] it is possible, however, that this may be explained by the increased time-relation. The attention cannot be fixed, as the least stimulus is sufficient to alter the train of thought; thus it was found impossible to fix the attention on a book, and a subsequent examination of notes attempted during intoxication showed incoördination both as regards language and writing.

On two occasions when deeply under the influence of the drug, there was an indescribable feeling of dual existence; thus after sitting with closed eyes subjectively examining the color visions, on suddenly opening them for a brief space one seems to be a different self, as on waking from a dream we pass into a different world from that in which we have been. This may be to some extent comparable to the rhythmical rise and fall of the “physical waves” in Indian hemp intoxication.⁠[11]

But by far the most remarkable of these subjective phenomena are the sensory hallucinations,⁠[12] especially visual. These arise gradually, and are at first only seen with closed eyes.... The visions rapidly become more marked, until on closing the eyes a regular kaleidoscopic play of colours can be seen with either eye, precisely the same; hence the condition must be central.

These colours may assume all kinds of fantastic shapes; they are never still, but constantly in motion, sometimes in a circular or to-and-fro manner, but more generally there is a kind of pulsation somewhat similar to that in the cinematograph.⁠[13]

Both native visions and white observations testify abundantly to the phenomena of synaesthesis, or the perception of the data of one sense in terms of another. Rouhier figures a painting made by an experimenter in which the sound of a bell is seen as a surréaliste aggregate of flowing, pulsating lines; and a subject of Havelock Ellis had a “curious sensation of tasting colors.” Crichtly mentions a color-taste synaesthesia also.⁠[14] All these phenomena are physiological constants, as indicated by comparison of native visions with white experimenters’ observations.

After visual hallucinations far the commonest are auditory ones. The writer, with a number of other observers, has noted the preternatural resonance, hollowness, discreteness and far-away quality of one’s own voice; if vocal disfunction were involved one would expect a raising of pitch here, hence it is probably auditory. On this point Dixon bears critical evidence:⁠[15]

The whole effect of the sound of the piano was most curious and delightful, the whole air being filled with music, each note of which seemed to arrange itself around a medley of other notes which appeared to me to be surrounded by a halo of colour pulsating to the music. Nasal hyperaesthesia was also present, though less evident than either the visual or auditory phenomena.

The more strictly physiological effects may be summed up as follows:⁠[16]

Skin: no local irritation on injection of pan-peyotl; one observer reports partial skin anaesthesia, but this does not affect cutaneous reflex-excitability, which is much increased.

Respiration: moderate amounts in Rana esculens produce no effect, but in toxic doses respiration becomes quicker and shallower, death ultimately occurring from paralysis of the respiratory center. In man respiration is ordinarily not affected, but some observers report shallower and more rapid breathing with “occasional long-drawn and deep sighs, and a painful feeling of suffocation.” Still another observer states that “respiration slows immediately after injection but is not influenced in a durable manner.”⁠[17]

Circulation: in the frog a marked effect on heart-beat: diminished rapidity, but increased duration; in the dog a small dose causes a slight rise in pressure, stronger doses considerable depression on the heart and vasodilation; in the cat mescaline causes initial lower pressure, slowly rising, and with a larger dose a greater initial fall, more marked slowing in beat, with variable promptness in recovery. In man .05 gr. of lophophorine causes marked slowing of beat but a rise in pressure and force. An ordinary dose of four “buttons” produces a 15-25% fall in the number of beats, with a slow recovery from a sharp drop unless more are eaten. But death in guinea pigs and frogs comes through paralysis of respiration, not of the heart, since in Wiley’s experiments it would beat 15-20 minutes after the death of the animal. “All this evidence points to the conclusion that the main effect of these alkaloids is a direct one on cardiac muscle ... [since] very large doses, quite non-therapeutic in amount, are ... required before the colour visions ... are observed.”

Salivation: increased in the cat, whether administered by mouth or subcutaneously; the alkaloids are secreted in the saliva (one cc. of cat saliva produces the same symptoms in a frog); in man salivation is somewhat increased.

Digestive system: in small doses pan-peyotl is constipating, according to some. In the cat large doses produce diarrhea and blood in the feces. In man and the quadrupeds all sensations of hunger are suppressed or absent during the period of intoxication, but the appetite returns somewhat increased after recovery; on first injection or ingestion there is a marked nausea and feeling of fullness in the stomach which passes off, without, however, hunger arising.

Blood, secretions, etc.: no increase in the coagulability of the blood; pancreatic and biliary secretions unaffected.

Kidneys: peyote alkaloids chiefly excreted by the kidneys; experiments show increased renal blood supply, and pan-peyotl is markedly diuretic.

Eyes: in the later stages of intoxication the pupils are widely dilated, accompanied by lack of accommodation and consequent photophobia.

Nervous system: sizeable doses produce their most marked effect on the nervous system: wakefulness (despite cardiac and muscular depression), exaggeration of all reflexes (due to selective action on the spinal cord). A frog injected with pan-peyotl became “exceedingly susceptible to stimuli, until even the slightest touch or even a breath of cold air is sufficient to give rise to a little nervous explosion, with the resulting contraction of several muscles”; the frog became rigid in tetanus as the reflexes degenerated. Convulsions are produced in the dog with ⅕ cc. of pan-peyotl, sometimes light, sometimes as violent as those of strychnine; death in convulsions with 1 cc. per kilogram of body weight. Pan-peyotl immediately kills a rabbit with a dose of 2 cc. per kilogram of body weight, injected intravenously; 2 cc. injected in the lymphatic sac paralyzes a frog. An injected cat shows “ataxic gait, with jerky and stiff movements”—a staccato effect in an animal notable for the legato quality of its movements—with “irregular twitchings of muscles over the whole body.” The same effects, less marked because of relatively smaller doses, appear in man as in other mammals. Extraordinary doses cause qualitatively and quantitatively the same reactions: the writer has seen a child, quite ill and suffering from malnutrition, brought very fretful into a peyote meeting and fed peyote “tea” until rigid in strychnine-like tetanic opisthotonos.

Psychic state: exceedingly variable, varying culturally, with the stages of intoxication, and in the individual himself at different times. Mexican visions sometimes have a frightening tone, sometimes one of hilarity. The writer had marked confirmation of this while still ignorant of this ethnographic fact: in an Oto meeting in 1936 visions were of monstrous animals so ridiculous and hilariously funny that proper self-restraint in meeting was difficult; yet, in a control experiment comfortably conducted in New Haven, the psychic state developed into one of stark, galloping, psychotic terror, quite inexplicable on realistic grounds (later, parallels were found in Winnebago material and in white observations). Curiously enough Dixon noted in a cat photophobia, dilated pupils and a fixed “stare ... [and] most of the physical elements of ‘terror.’ ... The ears were drawn back, the hair over the body, especially the tail, becomes erected, there is twitching of the superficial muscles, the respiration being shallow and hurried, and the heart weak and irregular.” One experimenter’s subject became possessed of the fixed idea that he was being poisoned, when the intoxication had thoroughly developed. This experience, once felt, is so strikingly physiological that one is tempted to wonder if there is any hypersecretion of adrenalin, perhaps in adjustmental reaction to the effect of the alkaloids on the heart. Dixon thought Lophophora differed from Cannabis indica in never provoking merriment; yet Wertham and Bleuler had one subject who achieved a state of to him quite meaningless hilarity. Fear states are present among native users also, to judge from the content of some visions recorded; conceivably these might be the psychic end-results of the intensified reflex-excitability induced by the strychnine-like alkaloids. However, one should bear in mind throughout the antagonistic effect of the alkaloids, which together with individual, cultural and other differences (physiological state, amount eaten, the form in which the drug is taken—infusion or solid, dry or green—the continued eating of it in late stages of intoxication, etc.) contribute to widely variable reactions. The experiments of Wertham and Bleuler are impressive in this connection.⁠[18] This variability for the same subject at different times, Indians explain, is conditioned by what one starts thinking about when the intoxication begins.⁠[19]

PEYOTE AS APHRODISIAC AND ANAPHRODISIAC

We have previously noted the use in Mexico of teo-nanacatl, Cacalia spp. and Cannabis spp. for their supposed aphrodisiac virtues. Peyote too has become involved in this use, but it has been as warmly defended as attacked, some indeed maintaining that it is a specific anaphrodisiac. It can hardly be both. The present writer, as a matter of fact, considers this less a problem of physiology than one of ethnology, psychology or even psychiatry, and is persuaded that in the pharmacological-physiological sense there exist neither aphrodisiacs nor their opposite, anaphrodisiacs.

The matter is not to be settled off-handedly by resort to experiments on white subjects; it is a more intricate question of culture and personality. If white subjects argue heatedly for peyote’s aphrodisiac and anaphrodisiac virtues, this proves nothing physiological. It merely indicates the long notorious fact that given the somewhat anti-sexual tradition of west European culture, the typical anxiety of its culture-bearers is sexual. This is scarcely the case with the Plains Indians I have observed. As expressed in ritual, symbolism and prayer, the typical anxiety of these natives is that about life itself—and the culture-historical background out of which this has grown will be readily recalled by students of Plains ethnography (constant warfare, prestige symbolisms, the coming of the Whites with new diseases, superior weapons, etc.).

We shall merely cite here, therefore, instances showing up the order of “proof” so far adduced to support these contrary stands about peyote. Lumholtz leads the anaphrodisiac school:

Another marked effect of the plant is to take away temporarily all sexual desire. This fact, no doubt, is the reason why the Indians, by a curious aboriginal mode of reasoning, impose abstinence from sexual intercourse as a necessary part of the hikuli cult.⁠[20]

Wertham and Bleuler also write of subjects that⁠[21] “efforts to conjure up an erotic scene were unsuccessful.” Fernberger,⁠[22] however, exhibits a still more naïve sense of evidence:

[An ethnographer] reports that in the Peyote Cults investigated there is no actual, implied or even symbolic eroticism⁠[23] which marks these ceremonies off from practically every other known American Indian ceremony of any tribe or group [!]. In order to test the validity of some of these reports, nine mature members of the faculty ... submitted together to extreme peyote intoxication.⁠[24] [The experiment was performed in a group because it] gave the opportunity for suggestion of one observer upon another [and permitted a ceremony complete with rattles and drum. Consequently⁠[25]] one unexpected and unforeseen result of this investigation is the evident strongly anti-aphrodisiac⁠[26] effect of the drug. This would again explain, for social psychology and for anthropology, the purely and totally unerotic character⁠[27] of the ceremonies of the Peyote Cults so unusual to American Indian ceremonies.⁠[28]

It seems alike profitless to enter into a discussion of those who argue the aphrodisiac properties of peyote.⁠[29] These have often enough been missionaries and administrators whose use of the argument in bitter attacks on the Native American Church shows them to be scarcely disinterested. Certainly from the evidence so far at hand we can only heartily endorse the opinion of Klüver⁠[30] that “the drug apparently does not influence the sexual sphere in any specific way.”

THERAPEUTIC USES OF PEYOTE

From the physiological relation of the peyote alkaloids to strychnine and morphine, considerable enthusiasm was early shown about their pharmacodynamics and possible therapeutic uses. Jolly⁠[31] in 1896 experimented on pellotine [= peyotline] as a hypnotic and soporific, for when used in small doses in man the fall of the pulse initially is accompanied by sleepiness. Heffter⁠[32] likewise reports a marked heaviness of limbs and eyelids. Loaeza,⁠[33] apparently using pan-peyotl preparations, maintained that peyote and Cereus serpentinus (organillo) had value as tonics or cardiac regulators, but variable action and individual idiosyncrasy is marked. Henry⁠[34] says the therapeutic dose of pellotine is one-third to two-thirds of a grain, but that it is only “slightly narcotic.” The high toxicity of lophophorine discourages its therapeutic use. Rouhier⁠[35] wrote in 1926 that “properly speaking, therapeusis by peyote does not yet exist. Although the drug was introduced in the American pharmaceutical market⁠[36] for twenty years, from which it has since disappeared, it is still unknown to the great medical public.” On the whole, however, the therapeutic possibilities of Lophophora seem unimpressive.⁠[37]

USES IN PSYCHIATRY

Because peyote produces what has been described as a “mescal psychosis,” it has been suggested that it might be a useful approach for the psychiatrist in the study of schizophrenia. The production of “horrible depressions” in a subject of Prentiss and Morgan and “fear that his life was leaving him,” as well as the unaccountable hilarity of Wertham and Bleuler’s subject, suggests a similar value, if any, in the study of manic-depressive psychoses too. No doubt psychoses may be exteriorized with increased facility in peyote intoxication, but this strikes one as a crude method and subject to the introduction of extraneous factors over which there is no control.⁠[38]

Hutchings used pellotine as a hypnotic on psychotic patients in the St. Lawrence State Hospital. Pilcz likewise reports this use of peyote as a sedative for the insane, but Warburg states that these experiments have met with little success, on account of the by-effects of the alkaloids. Dr. Goodall of the Carmarthen Asylum, according to Havelock Ellis, tried peyote on melancholic and stuporous patients, but “beyond dilation of pupils and rapidity [!] of heart action, the results were nil.” Martindale and Westcott report that formerly peyote was used in neurasthenia, hysteria and asthma; it is hard to see in some cases where the cure is any superior to the disease, however. Briau employed peyote in “anxiety states,” but the extremely variable emotional states under peyote intoxication make even tentative conclusions precarious.⁠[39] Indeed, peyote would be calculated to aggravate asthma and anxiety states under some circumstances!

Bensheim found different mescal reactions in cycloids and schizoids, but Wertham and Bleuler somewhat surprisingly discovered both reactions in a single person, and argued for the inconstancy of the formal structure of the “personality.” Probably, however, peyote had no definitive importance in either case though the former used only mescaline and the latter pan-peyotl. Zucker induced mescaline intoxication in the hallucinated insane, but far too many variables appear to be involved here. Zador conducted experiments on the blind and patients with disordered vision, using mescaline, the chief hallucination-producing alkaloid of peyote. Klüver discussed color predominance in reported visions (red-green in the initial phases, blue-yellow later). This suggests selective action of the alkaloids on various regions of the retina, evidence bearing on the Ladd-Franklin phylogenetic theory of color vision. Possibly, too, colors predominant in peyote-symbolisms of natives may have a physiological meaning. Klüver’s “form-constants” in peyote-intoxication may have similar significance, but he dealt largely with White visions only.⁠[40]

PEYOTE AS A DRUG

Of more concern, however, to those who interest themselves in the welfare of Indians is the possible ill effect or habit-forming nature of the drug. On this point we quote the opinions of those better qualified than the writer to speak.

Briau,⁠[41] in his psychiatric study, emphasized

the innocuousness of peyote.... No signs of grave intolerance were ever exhibited, nor any accident more disagreeable than vomiting, all too frequent at the beginning of a treatment with opiates. There was no notable organic upsetment produced during the time of action of the medicament. The effects on the circulation, respiration, digestive system and excretory functions have not appeared noxious. We have frequently examined urine for the existence of abnormal constituents revealing some derangement of the liver or the kidneys. In short, never during our researches have distressing secondary phenomena been manifested (headache, obnubilation, confusion, psychic and physical depression, or gastro-intestinal disturbances).... No brutality in the action [of pan-peyotl] can be remarked.

Briau believes the drug non-habit forming. Rouhier expresses himself more guardedly:

That peyote-mania can sometimes exist, we will not dispute. We merely remark, to explain our optimism on the subject, that the drug does not seem to provoke that irresistible physiological appetite, nor that “state of need,” purveyors of the great toxicomanias which opium, cocaine, heroine or alcohol create.

Havelock Ellis expresses himself as follows:

The few observations recorded in America and my own experiments in England do not enable us to say anything regarding the habitual consumption of mescal in large amounts. That such consumption would be gravely injurious I cannot doubt. Its safeguard seems to lie in the fact that a certain degree of robust health is required to obtain any real enjoyment from its visionary gifts.

The last statement is somewhat gratuitous, if not erroneous.⁠[42]

Hrdlička⁠[43] writes as follows:

My views ... are that any substance which is capable of producing such effects on the brain and nervous system if abused is bound to produce harm. Fortunately peyotl is rather scarce, is used on special occasions only—in a large majority of cases—and thus it is probably quite free from any permanent injury.⁠[44] The drug can perhaps be likened to nicotine, and like the latter will doubtless not affect different individuals to the same degree. Also, as with nicotine, it may be quite impossible with our present means to detect the harm it has done. Besides which it is quite possible that the system may build up some resistance or safeguard against it and thus prevent any substantial injury. I should by no means join myself to those who see in it any great danger.

FOOTNOTES: