User:Doctorcito/Drafts/Ayahuasca

Intro
Ayahuasca (ayawaska pronounced in the Quechua language) is any of various psychoactive infusions or decoctions prepared from the Banisteriopsis spp. vine, usually mixed with N,N-dimethyltryptamine-containing leaves of other plant species, notably of the Psychotria genus. The brew, described academically since the beginning of 20th century by scholars who find it employed for divinatory, healing, or festive purposes among Amerindians of Western Amazonia, is known by a number of different names (see below). A notable and puzzling property of ayahuasca is that neither of the ingredients cause any significant psychedelic effects when imbibed alone; they must be consumed together in order to have the desired effect. How indigenous peoples discovered the psychedelic properties of the ayahuasca brew remains a point of contention in the scientific community.

caapi psychotropic

Notes and references
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Phytochemistry and pharmacology The identification of B. caapi active components, and determination of their pharmacological properties proved to be a long, saltatory, and still unfinished task.

Timeline

1905. Colombian naturalist Rafael Zerda Bayón obtains a vaguely crystallized sludge from specimen of (probably) B. caapi he brought back from an expedition in the Caquetá and Putumayo areas. He believes to have almost isolated the active principle of the vine, that it is an alkaloid, and names it "telepathine".

1957. American chemists Francis Hochstein and Anita Paradies, from the Pfizer Research Laboratories, isolate harmine, harmaline, and, for the first time, d-tetrahydroharmine (THH) from botanically well identified samples of B. caapi stems "collected on the Napo River, near Iquitos, Peru".

Notes and references

Bibliography