page_title: Physochlaina
section_title: Physochlaina and Amanita: similarities in descriptions of macropsia in accounts of two Siberian hallucinogens
hierarchical_section_title: Physochlaina / Physochlaina and Amanita: similarities in descriptions of macropsia in accounts of two Siberian hallucinogens
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Drie vliegenzwammen op rij in de wijk Dieze-Oost in Zwolle.
context_page_description: Physochlaina is a small genus of herbaceous perennial plants belonging to the nightshade family, Solanaceae, found principally in the north-western provinces of China although one species occurs in Western Asia, while another is found as far east as those regions of Siberia abutting the eastern borders of Mongolia and, furthermore, not only in Mongolia itself, but also in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Some sources maintain that the widespread species P. physaloides is found also in Japan, but the species is not recorded as being native in one of the few English-language floras of the country. The genus is a valuable one, since its species are not only of considerable medicinal value, being rich in tropane alkaloids, but also of ornamental value, three species having been grown for the purpose, although hitherto infrequently outside botanical gardens. Furthermore, the genus contains a species formerly used as an entheogen in Siberia.
context_section_description: There exist curious similarities between Gmelin's account of the effects of Physochlaina beer  – as detailed above – and his student and fellow traveller Krasheninnikov's account of the effects of a very different, and better-known, Siberian hallucinogen, namely Amanita muscaria, the fly agaric. Gmelin and Krasheninnikov's accounts of the effects of intoxication by the plant and mushroom in question both derive from their participation in the extraordinary Great Northern Expedition (known also as the Second Kamchatka Expedition). As described above, they were travelling together in Central Siberia in the summer of 1738 on the occasion of Gmelin's discovery of Physochlaina physaloides and learning from the Evenk of the curious effects produced by the beer which they prepared from it. Gmelin was, at the time, one of three professors heading the Academic Group of the expedition, and his particular area of expertise within that group concerned the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, his brief being to document the fauna, flora and mineral wealth of Siberia encountered in their travels. After many adventures, including the encounter with Physochlaina physaloides on the Angara river near Yeniseysk, Professors Gmelin and Müller, student Krasheninnikov and many other expedition members gathered at Vitus Bering's base at Yakutsk. It was from here that Gmelin sent Krasheninnikov ahead to Okhotsk and Kamchatka to reconnoitre, make preliminary observations and prepare accommodation, and it was thus that he came to be the member of the expedition with the most extensive knowledge of the Kamchatka peninsula, publishing his observations in 1755 in the work Описание земли Камчатки (Description of the Land of Kamchatka) – from Chapter 14 of which the following passage is translated: 
  ...persons thus intoxicated [by Amanita muscaria] have hallucinations, as if in a fever; they are subject to various visions, terrifying or felicitous, depending on differences in temperament, owing to which some jump, some dance, others cry and suffer great terrors, while some might deem a small crack to be as wide as a door, and a tub of water as deep as the sea.
  To the above may readily be compared Gmelin's mistaking a drop of water for a mighty ocean and He pictures continually to himself the cruellest and most dreadful imaginings of an inevitable death awaiting him.
  The phenomenon, described in similar terms by Gmelin and Krasheninnikov in their respective accounts, is that of macropsia - whereby small objects are perceived as being enormous - a symptom of (among other conditions, both natural and self-inflicted) the use of psychoactive drugs (see also dysmetropsia).
  It is not clear, in this context, whether the similarity between the two accounts is due simply to the fungal and the plant drug eliciting similar symptoms or whether there has been a borrowing of phraseology from one author to another (in which direction it is hard to say). The inference would likely be that any borrowing were from the Physochlaina account to the Amanita account, were it not for the fact that accounts of macropsia caused by tropane-containing Solanaceae are rare, while those of macropsia caused by Amanita muscaria are common (or perhaps merely oft-repeated, from a few early sources).
  To this question one may further adduce the account of Amanita muscaria-induced macropsia in another early source, namely that of Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff, which seems as close in tone to Gmelin's account as does that of Krasheninnikov:
  The nerves are highly stimulated, and in this state the slightest effort of will produces very powerful effects. Consequently, if one wishes to step over a small stick or straw, he steps and jumps as though the obstacles were tree trunks. If a man is ordinarily talkative...he involuntarily blurts out secrets, fully conscious of his actions and aware of his secret but unable to hold his nerves in check. The muscles are controlled by an uncoordinated activity of the nerves themselves, uninfluenced by and unconnected with the higher willpower of the brain
caption: Amanita muscaria - the intoxicating mushroom noted by Krasheninnikov to cause macropsia - which Gmelin reported also to be a prominent symptom of Physochlaina narcosis.
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