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A GREAT DEAL of work both in this country and in Europe has gone into the development of the antihistaminic drugs, of which benadryl and pyribenzamine are the best known in the United States. These synthetic drugs have the single important action of neutralizing the effects of histamine and they were developed with this purpose in mind. According to a widely held theory histamine, which is present in harmless form in many tissues, is released when an allergic individual comes in contact with a substance to which he is sensitive. The released histamine is then free to produce symptoms by reacting with the tissues of the skin (causing hives), the nose (causing hay fever), or the lung (causing asthma). Pyribenzamine and benadryl when taken by mouth are absorbed into the blood stream and react in some manner with the sensitive tissues so as to render the released histamine harmless. The remarkable ability of these drugs to ward off the ill effects of histamine has been demonstrated time and again in guinea pigs. The drugs are likewise highly effective in protecting asthmatic individuals from asthmatic attacks that have been induced experimentally by the injection or inhalation of histamine.1 However, no one has been able to show to date that human allergic disease is actually due to the release of histamine. The fact that benadryl and pyribenzamine are clearly effective in the treatment of hives and hay fever is indirect evidence, however, in favor of the theory that histamine actually does play an important role in these diseases.