"Book Fungus Can Get You High"

by Ellen Warren, Chicago Tribune

"CHICAGO == Getting high on great literature is taking on a whole new meaning. It turns out that, if you spend enough time around old books and decaying manuscripts in dank archives, you can start to hallucinate. Really.

"Experts on the various fungi that feed on the pages and on the covers of books are increasingly convinced that you can get high == or at least a little wacky == by sniffing old books. Fungus on books, they say, is a likely source of hallucinogenic spores.

"The story of The Strangeness in the Stacks first started making its way through the usually staid antiquarian books community late last year with the publication of a paper in the British medical journal, The Lancet.

"There, Dr. R.J. Hay wrote of the possibility that 'fungal hallucinogens' in old books could lead to 'enhancement of enlightenment.'

"'The source of inspiration for many great literary figures may have been nothing more than a quick sniff of the bouquet of mouldy books,' wrote Hay, one of England's leading mycologists (fungus experts) and dean of dermatology at Guy's Hospital in London.

"Just last week the Las Cruces, N.M., Public Library was closed indefinitely, prompted by health concerns after a fungus outbreak in the reference section. Library director Carol Brey said the fungus promptly spread to old history books and onward to the literature section.

"The town's Mold Eradication Team, she said, shuttered the library as a precaution. 'We didn't want to take any chances,' she said. A mold removal company will address the problem, which is believed to have originated in the air conditioning system.

"Psychedelic mushrooms, the classic hallucinogenic fungus, derive their mind-altering properties from the psilocybin and psilocin they produce naturally.

"One historic example of this phenomenon, scientists now believe, is the madness that prevailed in the late 1600s in Salem, Mass., where ergot, a hallucinogenic fungus, infected the rye crops that went into rye bread. Ergot contains lysergic acid, a key compound of the hallucinogenic drug LSD. This tiny fungus and its wild effects on the rye-bread-eating women may have led to the Salem witch trials.

"Rossol, a New York chemist and consultant to Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History who publishes the newsletter Acts Facts, the journal of Arts, Crafts and Theater Safety, said that there have not been scientific studies on the hallucinogenic effects of old books.

"But, relying on accounts from newsletter readers who report their own strange symptoms == ranging from dizziness to violent nausea == she says there is no doubt that moldy old volumes harbor hallucinogens."