Last November I received a telephone call from Mrs A.B. in Saskatchewan who reminded me that her mother, a chronic schizophrenic, had been under my care at University Hospital, (before it became Royal) in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1960. This call re-awakened my interest in the history of the discovery of the mauve factor, which characterized a syndrome we called malvaria and which we later identified as kryptopyrrole.

Before 1960 Humphry Osmond and I had been studying the psychological experience induced by hallucinogenic drugs such as mescalin and LSD so that we might better understand the experiential world of our patients. Our studies of this experience, then considered psychosis mimetic or psychotomimetic, led Humphry to conclude that the experience was mind-manifesting or " psychedelic" and he announced this word at the New York Academy of Sciences meeting in New York in 1957. Psychedelic is a Saskatchewan word! These experiences could be either beneficial or harmful depending upon the setting, the objective, the supports and many other factors which influence psychological reactions.