Gordon Alles

1901–1963 · American · Caltech and UCLA; licensed his work to Smith, Kline & French

A pharmacologist rather than a synthetic chemist, and his contribution is discovery rather than invention. Amphetamine already existed when in 1929 he established what it does — self-experimenting while looking for an ephedrine substitute for asthma — and he prepared and patented the sulfate salt that Smith, Kline & French sold as Benzedrine. He did the same for MDA in 1930, taking 126 mg and describing the effects, though he did not publish that account until 1959.

Compounds credited overall: no reliable figure; the amphetamine and MDA findings are the significant ones

On this site

• Entactogens
• MDA C10H13NO2 discovered its activity, 1930

  First recorded human psychoactive dose. MDA itself was made by Carl Mannich and Willy Jacobsohn in 1910.

• Stimulants
• Amphetamine C9H13N discovered its activity, 1929

  Established the stimulant effect by self-experiment, and patented the sulfate salt sold as Benzedrine.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Alles
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3,4-Methylenedioxyamphetamine