Albert Hofmann was a Swiss chemist and writer.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on January 11, 1906, in the Swiss city of Baden. He was the oldest of four children in the family.
As a teenager, he was forced to work in retail to help his family and his ailing father. Despite this, he also pursued self-education.
He later enrolled at the University of Zurich, where he studied chemistry.
Career
He earned his doctorate after conducting research on the chemical structure of chitin. He then joined the chemical and pharmaceutical division of Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, where he began researching medicinal plants.
The Discovery of LSD
During his work, he studied sea onions and ergot fungus, focusing on the purification and synthesis of active compounds that could be used in the pharmaceutical industry. His research on lysergic acid, a key component of ergot alkaloids, ultimately led the scientist to synthesize the compound LSD-25 in 1938.
Five years later, he repeated the synthesis of the nearly forgotten substance and, on April 16, 1943, accidentally discovered its psychedelic effects after absorbing it through his fingertips. A few days later, he intentionally ingested 250 micrograms of LSD and experienced a much stronger effect.
After that, he and his colleagues conducted a series of experiments with the compound. The first notes on the research results appeared on April 22.
Further research
Hoffmann took on the role of director of the natural products division at Sandoz Laboratories and began researching the hallucinogenic substances found in Mexican mushrooms and other plants used by indigenous peoples. This eventually led him to synthesize psilocybin—the active compound found in most “magic mushrooms.”
He also became interested in the seeds of the Mexican morning glory, *Rivea corymbosa*, which the locals called *Ololiuhqui*. The researcher was struck by the fact that the active ingredient in these seeds turned out to be chemically similar to LSD.
In 1962, Hofmann and his wife Anita traveled to southern Mexico to find the plant “Ska Maria Pastora,” which was later named Salvia divinorum. He managed to collect samples, but was unable to identify the active ingredient—salvinorin A—at that time.
Hoffmann called LSD “medicine for the soul” and viewed the decision by governments around the world to ban the substance negatively, which drove it underground. He emphasized that LSD had been used effectively in psychoanalysis for 10 years, but that it was later “appropriated” by the youth movement of the 1960s in the U.S. and subsequently, in his view, unjustifiably demonized by the political circles that the movement opposed.
At the same time, Hofmann acknowledged that LSD poses a danger if used improperly.
The scientist is the author of more than a hundred scientific papers and several books, including “LSD—My Difficult Child,” a partly autobiographical work.
On January 11, 2006, during his 100th birthday celebration, he was the keynote speaker at an international symposium on LSD.
In 2007, Hoffmann topped Synectics’ list of the 100 greatest living geniuses.
Death/Fatalities
The scientist died of natural causes on April 29, 2008, at his home in Burg, near Basel, at the age of 102.
