Posted on Sunday, Sep. 30, 2007

Rieveschl, 93, invented antihistamine Benadryl

By Dennis Hevesi

George Rieveschl, a chemical engineer whom millions of sufferers of allergies, colds, rashes, hives and hay fever can thank for the relief they receive by swallowing a capsule of beta-dimethylaminoethylbenzhydryl ether hydrochloride -- the antihistamine he invented and renamed Benadryl -- died Thursday in Cincinnati. He was 91 and lived in Covington, Ky.

The cause was pneumonia, his wife, Ellen, said.

Rieveschl (pronounced REE-va-shell), who had a doctorate in chemistry, was an assistant professor researching muscle-relaxing drugs at the University of Cincinnati in the early 1940s when he realized the powerful potential of that 19-syllable antihistamine compound, then being tested as a muscle relaxer.