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psychiatric context in which researchers explored it, scientists decided to emphasize its "psychosis-mimicking" properties.’ PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS: SCIENCE AND SOCIETY + 23 understand its effects. Freudian psychoanalysis was that era's predomi- nant force in psychiatry. While Freud himself was strongly attracted to mind-altering drugs such as cocaine and tobacco, his students were less so. In addition, Freud distrusted religion and believed spiritual or reli- gious experience was a defense against childish fears and wishes. This attitude probably did little to encourage investigation of mescaline, with its trappings of Native American spirituality. Then LSD made its revo- lutionary appearance. In 1938 the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann was working with ergot, a rye fungus, in the natural products division of Sandoz Laboratories, even then a major pharmaceutical company. He hoped to find a drug that might help stop uterine bleeding after childbirth. One of these ergot-based com- pounds was LSD-25, or lysergic acid diethylamide. It had little effect on the uterus of laboratory animals, and Hofmann shelved it. Five years later, "a curious presentiment" called Hofmann back to examine LSD, and he accidentally discovered its powerful psychedelic properties. The remarkable thing about LSD was that it brought on psychedelic effects at doses of millionths of a gram, which meant that it had more than one thousand times the strength of mescaline. In fact, Hofmann nearly overdosed himself with what he thought was too small a quantity to possi- bly be mind-altering: a quarter milligram. Hoffman and his Swiss colleagues were quick to publish their findings in the early 1940s. Be- cause of the highly altered state of mind LSD produced, and the traditional The years after World War II were exciting ones for psychiatry. In addition to LSD, scientists also discovered the "antipsychotic" properties of chlor- promazine, or Thorazine. Thorazine made it possible for severely mentally ill patients to improve enough that they could leave asylums in unprec- edented numbers. This and other antipsychotic medications finally allowed doctors to make progress in treating some of our most disabling illnesses. The contemporary field of "biological psychiatry" was born in those years. This discipline, which studies the relationship between the human