The Dead Man’s Vine

A semi-legendary plant in Colombia is the ayahuasco or dead man’s vine. From it Indians make a brew which, it is claimed, is quite similar to the imaginary drug by which Dr. Jekyll split the good and evil elements of his character. When a medicine man first gulps the brew—this is an ethnological report which the botanists cannot confirm—he turns deadly pale, trembles in every limb, and the expression on his face is one of intense pain and horror. This is followed in about a minute by a reckless fury in which he seizes whatever lies at hand and starts beating the trees and ground. In about ten minutes the excitement leaves him and he falls to the earth, completely exhausted. There are not as yet any scientific accounts of the plant’s influence.