Victor A. Reko

Who is Victor A. Reko?

Victor A. Reko, 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, 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. Blas Pablo Reko, 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 for which he falsely claimed psychoactivity, Ololiúqui, peyotl, marihuana, toloachi, ayahuasca, colorines, coztic-zapote, xomil-xihuite, camotillo, and cohombrillo. The second edition also contained chicalote, minapatli, and herbas locas.