Dr. Oyswharf

Oyswharf carries an echo of "Owsley" - August Owsley Stanley III, described as the "undisputed king of the illicit LSD trade" in Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties, and Beyond, by Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain.

Huh? That's a pretty faint echo. I think this name is more connected to Oyster + Wharf, and the "oyster" thread that runs through the novel, from the fact that ground up oyster shells are a source of Calcium Carbonate (i.e., Iceland Spar), to the Japanese developing pearls that are used by the Chums' Upper Hierarchy to send them orders.WikiAdmin 22:18, 25 March 2007 (PDT)

Lew's hallucinations after failing to wash his hands recall the legend of Dr. Albert Hofman's discovery of the effects of LSD, after accidentally absorbing a small dose through his skin, according to Lee and Shlain. The "Beavers of the Brain" episode that follows sounds like something out of an LSD trip, those "ever-more-polycrystalline luminosities of meaning" [183].

Oyswharf also recalls Osbie Feel, a doper in Gravity's Rainbow. And Hofmann's discovery is mentioned in GR: "Jamf at the time was working for a Swiss outfit called Psycho-chemie AG, originally known as the Grössli Chemical Corporation, a spinoff from Sandoz (where, as every schoolchild knows, the legendary Dr. Hofmann made his important discovery)." Italic text