[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