The Fabulous Illustrated History of Psychoactive Plants, or Great Grandma's Pleasures

Description

Cleaned cooy. The Fabulous Illustrated History of Psychoactive Plants or Great Grandma's Pleasures is an illustrated survey of the sources, preparations and uses of stimulating, narcotising and intoxicating drugs in past centuries; drawn from rare texts and photographs. Of the innumerable chemical substances other than foodstuffs which the world contains, none have a more intimate connection with human life than those whose history and effects are described in this work. If human consciousness is the most wonderful thing on earth, the attempt to fathom the depths of psycho-physiological action of narcotic and stimulating drugs makes this wonder seem greater still, for with their help man is enabled to transfer the emotions of everyday life, as well as his will and intellect, to unknown regions; he is enabled to attain degrees of emotional intensity and duration which are otherwise unknown to the brain. Such effects are brought about by chemical substances. The most powerful of these are products of the vegtable kingdom, into whose silent growth and creative abundance man has not yet fully penetrated. By the exercise of their powers on the brain, they release marvelous stores of latent energy. They relieve the mentally tortured, assuage the racking pains of the sick, inspire with hope those doomed to death, endow the overworked with new vitality and vigor such as no strength of will could attain, and replace for an hour the exhaustion and langour of the overworked by mental comfort and content. - Louis Lewin 1924.