_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]