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contract or squeeze. (Despite all of Lerner's work, there is little evidence today that melatonin plays a role in vitiligo.)’ 62 Il THE BUILDING BLOCKS throwback to our early reptilian days, with no known role. That changed when American dermatologist Aaron Lerner discovered melatonin in 1958. This and related findings began what might be called the era of the "me- latonin hypothesis of pineal function." Lerner was interested in vitiligo, a skin disorder in which there are depigmented, or lightened, patches of skin throughout the body. A 1917 study observed that cow pineal gland extract lightened frog skin. Lerner thought that a pineal factor therefore was involved in vitiligo. He ground up over twelve thousand cow pineals and finally found the skin-lighten- ing compound. He named it melatonin because it lightened skin by contracting the black pigment in special cells: melas, black; and tonin, At the same time, scientists were manipulating light and dark cycles in order to better understand the effect of light on reproduction, no small issue when one considers the economic value of well-timed animal breeding for the livestock industry. They found that constant darkness blocked re- productive function and shrank the sexual organs; it also stimulated pineal growth and the production of melatonin. On the other hand, constant light shrank the pineal, reduced melatonin levels, and turned on sexual func- tion. Using these experimental results, scientists concluded that melatonin was the crucial pineal factor in whose presence reproductive function flagged, and in whose absence reproductive function flourished. Put sim- ply, melatonin possessed powerful anti-reproductive effects.* Now that the pineal gland had lost some of its mystery, how did melatonin relate to the alleged spiritual properties of the gland? I firmly believed that there was a spirit molecule somewhere in the brain, initiating or sup- porting mystical and other naturally occurring altered states of conscious- ness. My first best guess was that pineal melatonin was this "spirit molecule," the chemical interpreter through which the body and spirit met and communicated. If melatonin had profound psychedelic proper- ties, my search for the vehicle by which the pineal affected our spiritual lives was over.