Hunting Magic Eels traces psychoactive fish lore from ancient Mediterranean sources to modern ichthyoallyeinotoxism, linking seafood intoxication to myth, medicine, and natural history

Psychoactive fish and seafood intoxication stand at the center of this book, which follows reports of hallucinogenic marine animals across classical texts, folklore, and modern toxicology. The subject connects ancient Mediterranean stories about strange catches and altered states with the scientific phenomenon of ichthyoallyeinotoxism, in which eating certain fish can trigger vivid psychological effects. Giorgia Aquilanti situates these accounts in the overlapping histories of magic, medicine, zoology, and food culture. Classical authors, travelers, and later naturalists all contributed fragments of evidence about species whose consumption caused confusion, visions, or delirium, and those fragments shaped both learned traditions and popular imagination. The wider significance lies in how non-plant intoxicants complicate standard histories of psychoactive substances. Marine hallucinogens widen the map of drug knowledge beyond familiar plants and fungi, showing how environment, taxonomy, and cultural interpretation interact when unusual bodily and mental effects enter historical record.