Bicycle Day (Psychedelic Holiday)
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
- in 1938 he had a list of compounds to synthesize and inject into mice
- most do nothing, one of them, the 25th item in the list, causes restlessness. he notes this and moves on to the next
- none of the many compounds tested produced any significant results and nothing comes of this
- 5 years later he just one day remembers that one lsd compound, number 25, that produced restlessness and decides to remake it and ingest it himself
this is the kind of totally unbelievable macguffin type stuff you see written into the 7th movie of a long series when they run out of ideas. this is like when a show jumps the shark with some flashback to an earlier season with a “it was planned all along” trope
Edit: He also spilled some on himself, it was not the mouse or whatever that was restless. It was him.
he writes in the book synthesizing compounds that are not under active research is not allowed by the lab. but something he couldn’t let go from 5 years ago got him curious
Probably also there was a lot of failure and frustration that just doesn't get written about, because it's less interesting.
Owsley Stanley was also quite impressive- beyond his ability to synthesize large amounts of very pure LSD in dodgy apartments, he helped revolutionize audio technology with the Grateful Dead. Much of what we appreciate in large stadium sound these days was a direct descendent of the ideas he and Meyer explored in the late sixties through the late seventies.
One doesn't avoid that with meticulousness, it's protective gear or nothing. Hoffman had no reason to be wearing a hazmat suit, at least, none he was aware of.
It's enough to make one a bit paranoid even without partaking.
Edit: I just went and re ordered Albert Hofman's book LSD my problem child. Its been a long time but I remember it as being informative!