Alles made MMDA in his own laboratory in the mid-1950s as one of four methylenedioxy amphetamines he prepared and screened, latterly under contract to US Army medical research; he showed it was markedly less toxic than MDA, MDMA and MDPEA and used cat EEG to rank hallucinogenic potency. Alexander Shulgin synthesised MMDA independently in 1962 and was the first to describe its effects in humans, publishing in Nature in March 1964. The year is approximate ('mid-1950s'); Alles's Edgewood code name for the compound is unknown.
NOT his first synthesis: Gordon Alles made and studied it at Edgewood Arsenal in the mid-1950s. Shulgin synthesized it independently in 1962, discovered the psychoactivity the same year, and published in 1964. PiHKAL #132.
