ABSTRACT
Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) has been shown to have predictable effects in animals, consistent with observations in schizophrenic patient and other human subjects; thus indicating, that the paradigm is along the right lines in trying to identify unique characteristics of the psychotic nervous system. Complementing this use of LSD as a 'checking strategy' in animal modelling of schizophrenia, the study of the drug could have other applications, similar in aim but along different lines. The arguments in favour of LSD as a drug model for psychosis should hardly need labouring further; but its past neglect remains a fascinating piece of social history. On the scientific front the search for a cause of schizophrenia in some form of brain dysfunction has gone on for most of this century and the use of LSD as a vehicle for conducting such enquiry forms the serious side of the history of the drug.
