IN THE investigation into Ménière's disease, its etiology and its treatment, both conservative and operative, which is now proceeding at the Ear Department of Södersjukhuset, attention has been directed to histamine and the role that it may play in that disease. Since Miles Atkinson1 discussed the significance of histamine in Ménière's disease the subject has aroused keen interest. Atkinson classified the disease into two forms with respect to etiology. He believed that one form was due to histamine and that in this form the vertigo with its attendant complications was attributable to vasodilatation, the patients being sensitive to the histamine in their own blood and tissues. In contradistinction, in the second form he classed those cases in which the patients are not sensitive to histamine, the vertigo being primarily due to vasoconstriction. On this basis Atkinson outlined his treatment and suggested that histamine-sensitive patients should undergo desensitization with histamine,