One hundred consecutive patients who shivered following general or regional anesthesia and a surgical procedure were randomly treated with 25 mg pethidine, 2.5 mg morphine, 25 micrograms fentanyl or sodium chloride 0.9%, given in equal intravenous volumes over a 15-min period. The effects were evaluated every 5 min after the first injection. There was a spontaneous, time-related disappearance of shivering in the sodium chloride-treated patients. In the pethidine-treated group, shivering disappeared more than twice as fast as in the control group. The difference was highly significant at 15 and 20 min (P less than 0.001) and was unrelated to weight, body temperature or duration of anesthesia. Women responded sooner than men, reaching significance at 10 min (P less than 0.05), while men did so only at 20 min. Morphine or fentanyl had no effect. Nausea and vomiting were minimal and of equal incidence in narcotic- and placebo-treated patients.