Victor A. Reko

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Viktor Aloisius Reko, (born 3 August 1880 in Vienna) was an Austrian teacher and scientific author who moved to Mexico in 1921. He is best known for his popular book Magische Gifte: Rausch- und Betäubungsmittel der Neuen Welt ("Magic Poisons: Inebriating and Narcotic Substances of the New World"), first published in 1936. This book recorded a number of second-hand observations on New World psychoactive drugs, paraphrased from notes he took of conversations with his cousin, the eminent Mexican ethnobotanist Dr. , including the first published refutation of Dr. William Edwin Safford's uncharacteristically untenable assertion that teonanácatl was not a mushroom, but a cactus.

Reko's book also covered the following drugs, many of which were not mentioned in the earlier book Phantastica by Louis Lewin: sinicuichi (Heimia spp.) for which he claimed psychoactivity,[1] Ololiúqui (Turbina corymbosa), peyotl (Lophophora williamsii), marihuana (Cannabis sativa), toloachi (Datura stramonium var. tatula), ayahuasca, colorines (Erythrina and Sophora species), coztic-zapote (Pouteria campechiana), xomil-xihuite (Gelsemium sempervirens), camotillo (Dioscorea composita), and cohombrillo (Ecballium elaterium). The second edition also contained chicalote (supposedly obtained from a cross between Argemone mexicana and Papaver somniferum), minapatli (Sebastiania pavoniana, Mexican jumping bean), and herbas locas (Dioon edule, , and Oxytropis lambertii).[2]

Victor A. Reko became a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences.

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ M. H. Malone , A. Rother (1979). "Heimia salicifolia: A phytochemical and phytopharmacologic review". J. Ethnopharmacol. 42 (3): 135–159. doi:10.1016/0378-8741(94)90080-9. PMID 7934084.
  2. ^ V. E. Tyler (1979). "The case for Victor A. Reko - an unrecognized pioneer writer on New World hallucinogens". J. Nat. Prod. 42 (5): 489–495. doi:10.1021/np50005a009. PMID 392053.
Retrieved from ""