HISTAMINE IN THE TREATMENT OF MÉNIÈRE'S SYNDROME

Abstract

The publication in 1940 by Shelden and Horton¹from the Mayo Clinic of a paper on the successful treatment of Ménière's syndrome with histamine naturally caused a stir in the medical world. When to the value which is always attached to work from that institution was added the dramatic movie demonstration, at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association in the same year, of several acutely dizzy patients who, given an intravenous injection of histamine, immediately rose from their beds and walked, the reputation of histamine for the treatment of this condition was obviously assured, at least for a time. Since then it has been widely used and widely discussed. Yet even at that time there were grounds for doubt as to whether histamine was really the wonder worker that it seemed to be. These doubts were voiced in a paper²which, written at that time (July