Histamine: new thoughts about a familiar mediator.

Any health-care provider knows that the sneezing, wheezing, and itching that are commonplace most often involve a small molecule, namely, histamine. In addition to its inherent physiologic role, this seemingly small "actor" is of profound historical and fiscal significance. This is evidenced in part by the awarding of the 1936 Nobel Prize in physiology or Medicine to Sir Henry Hallett Dale and Dr Otto Loewi who discovered the actions of histamine and the 1957 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine to pharmacologist Dr Daniel Bovet who discovered the first antihistamine, pyrilamine (neoantergan)(1). (see Supplementary Data for full reference).