Ernst was a botanist, zoologist, metallurgist, chemist, geographer, travel writer, novelist, duellist, art collector and trailblazer in ethnopsychopharmacology.

Ernst's father, Ferdinand Johann von Bibra, (*1756; † 1807), fought under General Rochambeau in the American Revolutionary War on behalf of the colonies.

Doctor of Medicine & PhD) Martin Haseneier, in his foreword to the 1995 translation Plant Intoxicants relates that Ernst fought in no less than 49 duels as a young man!

The book includes seventeen chapters : 1) coffee, 2) coffee leaves as a beverage 3) tea, 4) Paraguayan Tea (yerba maté), 5) Guarana, 6) chocolate, 7) Fahan Tea (the orchid Angraecum fragrans Thouars as a source of coumarin), 8) Khat, 9) Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) opiate derived from the "poison lettuce,"10) thorn apple, 11) coca, 12) opium, 13) Lactucarium 14) hashish, 15) tobacco 16) Betel and Related Substances (Areca catechu, areca nut; Piper siriboa, the betel leaf) and 17) arsenous acid or arsenic trioxide (As2O3).

Starting with travel sketches and culturally historic descriptions rendered in novelistic style (Memories of South America, Leipzig 1861, 3 vols.

Founded in 1852, led by close friend and fellow Franconian baron, Hans von und zu Aufsess, whose goal was to assemble a "well-ordered compendium of all available source material for German history, literature and art".

Abstract of Article: Just three months after the first application of sulphuric ether to a patient in German-speaking countries the monography Die Wirkung des Schwefeläthers in chemischer und physiologischer Beziehung was published.

In this book Ernst von Bibra and Emil Harless presented their experimental research on the effects of ether on humans and compared it to those on animals.

The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) cites the following composition of barley meal according to Ernst von Bibra, omitting the salts:[1] Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D., F.L.S.

who was the Curator of Economic Botany and Executive Director, Harvard Botanical Museum wrote in The plant kingdom and hallucinogens (1970): Albert Hofmann writes and quotes Ernst in his book LSD — My Problem Child, Chapter 7.