How LSD originated.

Time and again it has been said and written that In the spring of 1929 at the conclusion of my LSD was an accidental discovery. This is only partly chemical studies at the Universit3." of Zurich, I joined the correct, because LSD came into being in the course of pharmaceutical-chemical research laboratoD" of Sandoz systematic research, and only later in the game did the in Basel as a co-worker of Professor Arthur Stoll, accident occur: when LSD was already five years old I founder and director of the pharmaceutical department. experienced its unexpected effects in my own body; I chose this position because it afforded me the more correctly stated, in my own mind. Every discovery opportunity to work on natural products, whereas two has its prehistory that shows in the end all that must other job offers from the thenileal industries of Basel happen before the discovery becomes possible, had involved work in the field of synthetic chemistH'. When 1 look back in my thoughts to trace all the direction-giving events and decisions in my professional carrer that eventually steered my work into this field of FIRST CHEMICAL INVESTIGATIONS research in which ! synthesized LSD, I am led back to My doctoral work under Professor Paul Karrer had my choice of employment after I had finished my already matched my predilection for the chemistH" of training in chemistry. Had I at any point chosen the plant and animal world. I/Vith the aid of the otherwise, _hen this substance, which has become gastrointestinal juice of the vineyard snail, I succeeded in world renowned under the designation LSD, might never the enzymatic degradation of chitin, the structural have been created. If ! wish to relate the story of the material of which the shells, wings and claws of insectS, origin of LSD, I must therefore also describe briefly my crustaceans and other lower animals are composed. The career as a chemist in which the story is inseparably chemical structure of chitin could be derived from the + embedded, cleavage product obtained by this degradation, a nitrogen-containing sugar. Chitin turned out to be an