Le Peyotl: La Plante Qui Fait les Yeux Émerveillés

Le Peyotl: La Plante Qui Fait les Yeux Émerveillés
AuthorAlexandre Rouhier
LanguageFrench
SubjectPeyote
GenreNon-fiction
PublisherGaston Doin et Cie
Publication date1927
Publication placeParis, France
Pages372
Websitearchive.org/details/alexandre-rouhier-peyotl/

Le Peyotl: La Plante Qui Fait les Yeux Émerveillés, also known as Peyote: The Plant That Fills the Eyes with Marvels, is a 1927 book about peyote by the French pharmacist Alexandre Rouhier. Peyote contains the psychedelic drug mescaline.

The book extensively reviews peyote, including its botany, chemistry, history, ethnography, and medical properties. In addition, it included original research by Rouhier on peyote and its alkaloids. It is said to have introduced France and Europe to mescaline in various ways.

The book followed and was largely based on Rouhier's 1926 dissertation, Monographie du Peyotl: Echinocactus Williamsii Lem. (Peyote Monograph: Echinocactus Williamsii Lem.). It was reprinted in 1975 with minor corrections. Rouhier also published other articles on peyote. In addition, besides peyote, he published works on other drugs such as yagé and yoco (caffeine).

Several reviews of the book have been published. It was described as the most comprehensive review of the drug that has been published up to that date. Alexander Shulgin read the book along with other works prior to eventually trying mescaline himself in 1960.

Rouhier grew and sold peyote from his pharmacy in France from 1927 until the 1960s. No prescription was required and advertisements appeared in the popular press.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Dubus Z, Grandgeorge E, Verroust V (2023). "History of the administration of psychedelics in France". Front Psychol. 14 1131565. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1131565. PMC 10513055. PMID 37744588. In the 1920s, the pharmacologist Alexandre Rouhier captured the attention of the French and international scientific communities, first through his important monograph on the uses of peyote, which was translated several times, and later through his pharmaceutical preparations. [...] Alexandre Rouhier: the totality of peyote's alkaloids, for a polyvalent therapeutic action: The 1927 appearance of pharmacist Alexandre Rouhier's Le Peyotl: la plante qui fait les yeux émerveillés (Peyote: The Plant That Fills the Eyes with Marvels) was a success considering its somewhat obscure subject matter (Rouhier, 1927). [...]
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jay, Mike (18 June 2019). Mescaline: A Global History of the First Psychedelic. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-23107-6. In 1926 the French pharmacist Alexandre Rouhier approached the question from a different angle in his monograph Le peyotl: la plante qui fait les yeux émerveillés (Peyote: The Plant That Fills the Eyes with Marvels). Rouhier practised in Lyon and had for some years been growing peyote in the hills above the Côte d'Azur. His book drew together his extensive researches, many of them previously published, on peyote's botany, alkaloid chemistry, history, ethnography and medical properties. Stylishly written, handsomely illustrated and widely read, it introduced to mainstream Francophone culture the peyote rites of the Tarahumara and Huichol peoples, James Mooney's descriptions of the Kiowa ceremony and the pioneering self-experiments of Silas Weir Mitchell and Havelock Ellis. It rendered 'mescal psychosis' as 'l'ivresse peyotlique' ('peyote drunkenness') and drew examples of it from Rouhier's own experiences, [...] In Le peyotl (1926), the French pharmacist Alexandre Rouhier introduced European readers to peyote's botanical history and its ancient use in divination and healing. [...]
  3. 1 2 3 4 Daniel M. Perrine (2001). "Visions of the Night Western Medicine Meets Peyote 1887-1899" (PDF). The Heffter Review of Psychedelic Research. 2: 6–52. In his doctoral dissertation of 1926, Monographie du Peyotl, and in the book he wrote based largely on this dissertation, La Plante qui fait les yeux émerveillés: Le Peyotl, Alexandre Rouhier (1975) later discusses Heffter's strychnine-morphine spectrum in a way which has led some to believe that Rouhier himnself tested all five peyote alkaloids on human subjects in pure form. But a careful reading of Rouhier's data (pp. 226-231) shows that it is nothing more than a literal translation into French of Heffter's self-experiments in every instance [...] Rouhier, A. (1975) La Plante qui fait les yeux émerveillés: Le Peyotl, [1927 edition with minor corrections by the author], Trédaniel, Paris. [...]
  4. ↑ Rouhier, Alexandre (1927). Le Peyotl: La Plante Qui Fait les Yeux Émerveillés [Peyote: The Plant That Fills the Eyes with Marvels] (in French). Doin. Archived from the original on 14 March 2024. Retrieved 26 June 2026.
  5. ↑ Vamvakopoulou IA, Narine KA, Campbell I, Dyck JR, Nutt DJ (January 2023). "Mescaline: The forgotten psychedelic". Neuropharmacology. 222 109294. doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2022.109294. PMID 36252614.
  6. ↑ Cassels BK, Sáez-Briones P (October 2018). "Dark Classics in Chemical Neuroscience: Mescaline" (PDF). ACS Chem Neurosci. 9 (10): 2448–2458. doi:10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00215. PMID 29847089.
  7. 1 2 3 Brown, Adelaide Frances (1927). "Le Peyotl (Echinocactus Williamsii Lem.): La plante qui fait les yeux emerveilles". Psychological Bulletin. 24 (11): 656–658. doi:10.1037/h0069481. ISSN 1939-1455. Retrieved 26 June 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 Dubus, Zoë (2023). "Histoire de l'usage médical des psychédéliques en France" [History of the medical use of psychedelics in France]. Politiques des Drogues. 5: 3–8. Le pharmacien Alexandre Rouhier soutient sa thèse sur le cactus « qui fait les yeux émerveillés » en 1926 ; l'ouvrage est publié un an plus tard1 et connaitra dans les décennies suivantes plusieurs traductions et rééditions. Rouhier vend dans son officine des médicaments à base de peyotl additionnés de belladone ou de jusquiame, au moins jusque dans les années 1960. Il n'est pas nécessaire de présenter une ordonnance pour en obtenir et on en trouve des publicités dans la presse populaire.
  9. ↑ Rouhier, Alexandre (1926). Monographie du Peyotl: Echinocactus Williamsii Lem [Peyote Monograph: Echinocactus Williamsii Lem.] (Doctoral). Lons-le-Saunier: Lucien Declume.
  10. ↑ Rouhier, A. (1 December 1923). "La plante qui fait les yeux émerveillés — Le Peyotl" [The Plant That Fills the Eyes with Marvels – Peyote] (PDF). La Presse Médicale (in French) (50): 446–449. ISSN 0032-7867.
  11. ↑ Rouhier, Alexandre (May–June 1925). "Phénomènes de métagnomie expérimentale observés au cours d'une expérience faite avec le "peyotl" (Echinocactus Williamsii)" [Phenomena of experimental metagnomy observed during an experiment conducted with "peyote" (Echinocactus williamsii)]. Revue Métapsychique (in French) (3): 144–154.
  12. ↑ Rouhier, Alexandre (1988). "L'ebbrezza peyotica (Studio sull'esperienza di Havelock Ellis)" [Peyote Intoxication (A Study of Havelock Ellis's Experience)] (PDF). In Bailly, J. C.; Guimard, J. P. (eds.). L'esperienza allucinogena [The hallucinogenic experience] (in Italian). Bari: Edizioni Dedalo. pp. 69–79. ISBN 978-88-220-0182-5.
  13. ↑ Rouhier, Alexandre (1924). "Le yagé: plante télépathique" [The yagé: a telepathic plant] (PDF). Paris Médical (in French). 52 (15): 341–346.
  14. ↑ Rouhier, A. (1926). "Documents pour servir à l'étude du yagé" [Documents to be used in the study of yagé] (PDF). Bulletin des Sciences Pharmacologiques (in French). 33: 252–261.
  15. ↑ Rouhier, A.; Perrot, É. (1926). "Le "Yocco", nouvelle drogue simple à caféine" (PDF). Bulletin des Sciences Pharmacologiques (in French). 33: 537–539.
  16. ↑ Rouhier, Alexandre (1927). Les Plantes divinatoires [Divinatory Plants] (in French). O. Doin, G. Doin et Cie.
  17. ↑ Fernberger, Samuel W.; Rouhier, Alexandre (1928). "Le Peyotl: La plante qui fait les yeux emerveilles". The American Journal of Psychology. 40 (2): 330. doi:10.2307/1414517. JSTOR 1414517. Retrieved 26 June 2026.
  18. ↑ Unknown (1927). "Le Peyotl: la Plante qui fait les Yeux émerveillés (review)". Brain: A Journal of Neurology. 50. Oxford University Press: 269–270. ISSN 0006-8950.
  19. ↑ Shulgin, Alexander; Shulgin, Ann (September 1991). PiHKAL: A Chemical Love Story. Berkeley, California: Transform Press. ISBN 0-9630096-0-5. OCLC 25627628. "Mescaline: a magic name and a magic compound. My first encounter with this word was just after World War II, when I returned to Berkeley [...] In the area of serious and thoughtful texts, there were the writings and the famous maps of Alexander Rouhier in 1926. There was the treatise by Kurt Beringer, which described the responses of many scores of subjects to effective doses of mescaline, administered almost always by injection. His book, "Der Meskalinrauche siene Geschichte und Erscheinungsweise," (1927) has never been translated into English. [...] I read all the more recent literature about it that had appeared, the essays of Aldous Huxley in the mid-1950's (the exuberant Doors of Perception and the more cautious Heaven and Hell) [...] But it was not until April of 1960 that a psychologist friend of mine, Terry Major, and a friend of his who was studying medicine, Sam Golding, reinforced my interest and provided me with the opportunity to be "babysat" on an experience with 400 milligrams of mescaline sulfate. It was a day that will remain blazingly vivid in my memory, and one which unquestionably confirmed the entire direction of my life. [...]"