Indians of North America -- Religion; Indians of North America -- Rites and ceremonies; Peyotism
[37] But not to all persons! The typical over-enthusiasm with which
new materia medica are received is itself an interesting ethnographic
commentary. Prentiss and Morgan (_Therapeutic Uses_, 4-5) prescribed it
variously for “cramps, griping and colic ... [and] nervous headache”
as well as “tickling in the throat.” They also report (_The Alkaloids
of Anhalonium_, 123-37) uses by other doctors. Two brothers, doctors,
prescribed peyote for their brother who was suffering from “softening
of the brain.” He died a few months later, uncured. Nevertheless, they
prescribed peyote for their sister, who was “very low and out of her
head;” she later recovered. Richardson (D. A.), (_A Report_, 194-95)
reports still more spectacular sequelae. He administered peyote to a man
with “frontal cephalalgia.” “Especially would I remark,” he says, “on the
clearing of the skin of pimples over the chest and back, and a marked
softening of the hair, which before the exhibition of the anhalonium was
dry, with a tendency to break easily.” It nevertheless also decreased
the abnormal oiliness of the skin. Further, he thought it was a solvent
for uric acid, likely to be of value for stones in the bladder. Lastly,
“In my opinion, anhalonium is a superior cardiac tonic, and, like
nitroglycerine, its effects are prolonged after the administration of the
drug is withdrawn.”
The efficacy of peyote in native doctoring seems as little established
also. Reasons of ethnographic nature have already been cited for doubting
the anti-alcoholic virtue of peyote. Indeed, the leader of one meeting I
attended I visited in jail later in the week; he had been arrested for
drunken street-fighting. I could uncharitably cite half-a-dozen similar
cases, but it seems amply enough demonstrated that there is no relation
of exclusiveness between peyotism and alcoholism.
[38] Klüver, _Mescal, The “Divine” Plant_, 97, 108. Prentiss and Morgan,
_Anhalonium Lewinii_, 581; Wertham and Bleuler, _Inconstancy in the
Formal Structure_, 52, 60.
[39] Hutchings, in Heffter, _Ueber Pellote_, 409; Pilcz, _Ueber
Pellotin_, 1121-22; Warburg, in Bennett and Zingg, _The Tarahumara_,
136; Ellis, _Mescal: A Study_, 71; Martindale and Westcott, _The Extra
Pharmacopoeia_, 1:836; Briau, in Koang-Hobschette, _Les Cactacées_.
Karwoski (_Psychophysics_, 212) suggests that peyote might heighten
rapport in psychoanalysis; cf. Deschamps.
[40] Bensheim, _Typenunterschiede_, 121; Wertham and Bleuler,
_Inconstancy in the Formal Structure_, 70; Zucker, _Versuche_, 107;
Zador, _Meskalinwirkung bei Störung_, 30; _Meskalinwirkung_; Klüver,
_Mescal, The “Divine” Plant_, 36-39, 41; Ladd-Franklin, _Colour and
Colour-Theories_, _passim_.
[41] Briau, in Koang-Hobschette, _Les Cactacées_, 73-74; Rouhier, _Le
Peyotl_, 337; Ellis, _Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise_, 141.
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