The hypnotic efficacy of doxylamine

The efficacy of doxylamine succinate as a nighttime hypnotic was compared with that of placebo and a standard drug, secobarbital sodium, using a double‐blind, randomized block design and replicate observations. The study was performed in 22 hospitalized patients with chronic disease who were accustomed to taking nightly hypnotics. Doxylamine, in doses of 25 and 50 mg., was found to be an effective hypnotic drug, with little difference in the performance of the two doses. Doxylamine performed generally better than secobarbital, 100 mg., but was somewhat inferior to secobarbital, 200 mg. Although the active treatments were Significantly better than placebo, 50 per cent of the patients reported satisfactory sleep on dummy medication. Side effects were mild with little difference between the different drugs and placebo except for “hangover,” which occurred more often after doxylamine and secobarbital.