Alexander Shulgin, synthesized Ecstasy

Biochemist Alexander Shulgin accidentally discovered one of the most famous and infamous party drugs of the1980s.

He synthesized a compound called MD MAin 1976 in his backyard laboratory and, aswas his tradition, tried it out on himself. “First awareness at 35 minutes,” he wrote in his journal of the mood-altering drug, “smooth and it was very nice.” He felt it held therapeutic promise.

But the political and legal ramifications of the drug, called Ecstasy when it hit the rave party scene in the 1980s, were anything but smooth. Critics blamed MDMA, and Mr. Shulgin by extension, for bad reactions and even deaths.

Mr. Shulgin, 88, died Monday at his home in Lafayette, Calif., according to an announcement on his website. He had been diagnosed earlier this year with liver cancer.

At the time of his experiments with MDMA, Mr. Shulgin, known as Sasha to his friends, had already scored a major success for an established company. While working for Dow Chemical, he developed what was described as the first biodegradable pesticide, Zectran.

The patent was such a boon to Dow that the company gave Mr. Shulgin wide discretion in what he researched.

“Dow said, ‘ Do as you wish,’ ” Mr. Shulgin said in a 2002 interview with the Independent newspaper in London. “So I did. I did psychedelics.”

Mr. Shulgin had been introduced to psychedelics when he tried mescaline with friends in 1960. It was a life-changing experience, unearthing long-forgotten incidents and feelings.

“The most compelling insight of that daywas that this awesome recall had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid,” he wrote in his 1990 book, “Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story,” written with his wife, Ann.

But Mr. Shulgin warned about the recreational use of the drugs. “Use them with respect as to the transformations they can achieve, and youhave an extraordinary research tool,” Mr. Shulgin wrote. “Go banging about with a psychedelic drug for a Saturday night turn-on, and you can get into a really bad place.”

Mr. Shulgin was born June 17, 1925, in Berkeley. He was admitted to Harvard in 1942 on a full scholarship, but he hated it.

After less than two years, he dropped out and joined the Navy, serving in the North Atlantic during World War II. After his discharge in 1946 he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, and earned a doctorate in biochemistry.

He wasn’t the first to develop MDMA — that was done by the German company Merck in 1912, but there are no records of the company performing human tests. By the time Mr. Shulgin had synthesized it in the form he ingested, he had left Dow and had set up his own lab.

Mr. Shulgin insisted that his experiments there were legal, though he not only tested his compounds on himself but also with a group of like-minded friends. He found fascinating even bad feelings brought on by his experiments.

Despite all the trouble MDMA caused him, Mr. Shulgin said in 2005 that the prospect of research was still enticing.

“It’s unbelievably exciting,” he said in an interview with the Guardian in London. “You’re opening doors that have never been opened before, doors where they didn’t even know there was a door. It can be frightening.”