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Five pesticides (carbaryl, DDT, parathion, chlordimeform, and ametryne) were tested for their effects on the immunocompetence of Balb/c mice. All five of the test pesticides were observed to induce statistically significant suppression of the humoral immune response if administered orally, at near lethal doses, during an ongoing immune response. Ametryne and chlordimeform were also observed to have a suppressive effect on humoral immune competence if orally administered in a sufficiently large quantity, 1 LD50, at the time of, or prior to, immunization. Administration of 0.1 LD50 parathion per day, over an extended period of time, resulted in a statistically significant suppression of the humoral immune response.

yohimbine was a potent antimetabolite of serotonin (8), and when it was learned that reserpine is a derivative of yohimbine, it seemed likely that it would have a similar type of action. It may be that some of the pharmacological effects of reserpine arise from an antiserotonin property. The ability of reserpine to displace serotonin from tissues is clearly a type of action possessed by bona fide antimetabolites of serotonin, such as BAS (9).

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