The first applications of mescaline in psychiatry: The case of Madame Louise Françoise R. and its contemporary relevance
Neuropharmacology October 15, 2025 Marion Hendrickx, Antoine Dampierre, Emmanuel Drouin 1 citation
In 1930, four years before their official publication, psychiatrists Henri Claude and Henri Ey treated a patient, Madame Louise Françoise R., with mescaline at Sainte-Anne hospital in Paris. They administered subcutaneous injections of 20-40 mg, doses now considered sub-threshold, far below the later recognized effective range of 250-500 mg. The experiment was exploratory, using mescaline as a functional probe to observe psychopathological mechanisms rather than as a cure. The patient experienced colored visions, depersonalization, and the observation that "mescaline releases but does not create fantasies." A few days later, she received malariotherapy, an archetypal shock therapy, which was followed by clinical improvement.