The word “psychedelic” is translated as “mind manifesting.” Psychedelic drugs are known to cause out-of-body visions and hallucinations. Carlos Castaneda studied psychedelic, and other medicinal plants, used by different groups of indigenous peoples from the United States of America. Aside from tasting fantastic, some mushrooms have hallucinogenic properties. Not all of them, obviously, but the ones belonging to the genus Psilocybe do. Some specific examples include: the species...

Are there any crime novel enthusiests who are not familiar with the adventures of Sherlock Holmes? The exploits of detective who lives at 221B Baker Street are legendary. He is beloved for his observation skills and the method of logical deduction. The man solved mysteries, “shedding light into darkness” as he might say. He is almost inhuman in his perfection. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote extensively on the nature and habits of his detective, describing him in an almost “Holmesian”...

While depression has been around for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, it was not until the 1950s that pharmacologic agents began to emerge to help treat this disorder. To date, the drugs prescribed to treat depression operate by increasing the levels of certain neurotransmitters (chemicals in the brain) ??? most notably serotonin and norephinephrine. Though many patients improve with therapy, there is a subset of patients that do not improve when administered commonly used antidepressant medications....

Zortress is a new drug that helps prevent organ rejection in patients receiving a kidney transplant. This drug (manufactured by Novartis) was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in April 2010, and used as an adjunct therapy with reduced doses of a calicneruin inhibitor (CNI) such as cyclosporine, basilizimab and corticosteroids. Zortress has been available outside the U.S. as the drug Certican. Prior to approval of this pharmacologic agent, the FDA reviewed the results of the...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug, ella??? (ulipristal acetate), which is a progesterone agonist/antagonist that can delay or inhibit ovulation. This drug may be used for emergency contraception and will prevent pregnancy when taken orally within five days (about 120 hours) after unprotected intercourse or a contraceptive failure. Ella is only available with a prescription and is not intended to be used as a contraceptive, nor is it to be used for terminating an existing...

In Australia traditional, indigenous, medicine is known as “bush medicine.” Bush medicine is based on the fundamental premise that there are two causes of illness – supernatural and natural. Natural remedies would be used to treat natural illness and spiritual cures would be used to treat supernatural illness. Supernatural illness, they believe, is caused by evil spirits and can only be treated by the medicine man, healer, or shaman of the tribe. This is less unusual than it sounds,...

When most people think of “side effects” for perscription drugs they think of head aches, dizines, or nausea, negative things in other words. However, there are exceptions where prescription drugs cause unintended positive side effects. A good example of this was published in a paper by Rohrer, Smith and Warren in the journal Epilepsia, May 2006, titled “Craving for music after treatment for partial epilepsy.” It described the case of a young woman who suffered from severe...

According to a paper published in the European Journal of Neurology in April 2006, migraines affects 12-28 percent of people at some point in their lives. The same paper showed that 14???35 percent of adult women and from 6???15 percent of adult men suffer from migraines during a period of one year. However, this is not a new affliction.The Ebarus Papyrus, dated around 1200 B.C.E, describes the symptoms of a migraine in a patient from ancient Egypt. Yet, for a disease that has been on record since...

The book “Awakenings” was written by the famous neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks. It describes a summer during which 15 people suffering from the sleeping-sickness (encephalitis lethargica). These patients were frozen in a sleep that lasted for decades, and were given up as hopeless. That was, until the summer of 1969 when Dr. Sacks gave them a new drug, L-Dopa. This drug was designed to treat Parkinson’s Disease, but Dr. Sacks reasoned that the symptoms of sleeping sickness could be...

Most people experience some form of depression during their lifetime. If someone was to search the Internet for how to treat depression, they would probably find the usual unpronouncable brand names of prescription drugs. However, there is also a master drug that most people love and indulge in quite regularly – chocolate. Chocolate comes from the cacao beans, cultivated in the Mesoamerican region for the past 300 years. It was primarily used as a beverage throughout its history. Solid chocolate,...