Trippin’ face with Dr. Jakyll
"Louis’s mad behaviour… I think it must be the ergotine that effects his brain at such time."
Letter from Fanny Stevenson to William Henley.
A new theory suggests that Jekyll and Hyde creator Robert Louis Stevenson tripped on LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide aka acid) as a side effect of his tuberculosis treatment, ergotine (a derivetive of the fungus). Ergot, which grows on rye and wheat, has caused mass poisonings throughout history. Because of the accompanying hallucinations and paranoia, ergot poisoning was occasionally mistaken for demonic possession. Many witch trials including those in Salem, MA, in 1692, are believed to be tied to ergotism. Professor Robert Winston, the chair of the House of Lords select committee on science and technology, believes that Stevenson had an ergotine overdose that may have inspired him to write The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde two weeks later. Winston’s argument’s pretty tight, mainly because Stevenson always claimed that the plot for Jekyll and Hyde came to him in a fevered dream while he was seriously ill, it was just a matter of checking what drugs he was taking.
Drug took Stevenson face to face with Hyde, Times Online