Since their introduction to medical practice in 1960, benzodiazepines have become among the most commonly prescribed medications and have, to a great extent, replaced prescriptions of short-acting barbiturates and other sedative-hypnotics. The discovery of their psychoactive properties was almost missed. During a cleaning of their laboratory in April of 1957, Earl Reeder called to Leo Sternbach's attention several hundred milligrams of a substance and its hydrochloride salt they had synthesized in 1955 which had not been submitted for pharmacological testing. They sent the hydrochlor- ide...