The Last Trip

Albert Hoffman, inventor of LSD, died of a heart attack on April 30th, in his home in Basel, Switzerland.  He was 102 years old.

Dr. Hoffman was working with various extractions or Ergot fungus alkaloids, in attempts to find a medicine which would aid in childbirth by dilating the cervix. Though the rats he experimented on with LSD-25 did show some dilation of the cervix, they also seemed to behave listlessly, so he shelved that particular formula and tried other extractions. Roughly six years later he decided to work with it again and accidentally dosed himself. The rest is history.

Although there have been many accounts of the event, the most accurate has to be Hoffman’s. In his publication, My Problem Child, he details not only the event of his accidental usage, but the history leading up to the event and subsequent events which followed after.