Dzhafarov Center for Scientific and Engineering Problems, 11, Ulanskii per., Moscow, 101000 Russia; Moscow State Academy of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnology named K.I. Skryabin, 23, ul. akademika Skryabina, Moscow, 109472 Russia, e-mail: mxd123@mail.ru Received April 24, 2013 S umma r y The attention is focused on the main classes of anthelmintics. <...> Mode of action of the anthelmintics and the anthelmintic resistance, and alternative methods for dehelminthization are discussed. <...> A targeted search for new anthelmintic substances in the series of speculative parental hydrocarbons (benzene, indene, naphthalene, 1 H1-cyclopenta [a]-naphthalene and phenanthrene) is suggested to be prospective on the basis of variation in their structure from the fully unsaturated to saturated forms, including those containing heteroatoms (N, O, S), various functional groups and substituents: Keywords: animal and human helminthoses, chemotherapy and prophilaxis, anthelmintic substances, folk remedy, inorganic and organic anthelmintics, santonin, flixic acid, phenothiazine, pyrazine, benzimidazoles, imidazolthiazoles, tetrahydropyrimidines, avermectins and its analogs, gemacs, salicylanilides, nitazoxanide, emodepside, aminoacetonitril derivatives (AADs), monepantel, spiroindols, derquantel, tribendimidine, biological methods of the controls of helminthosis. <...> Helminthiases cause significant damage to the economy, including damage to human health and capacity to work (1-3), decline in meat, dairy and egg production, barrenness and mortality of livestock, loss in quality of skin and wool (4), as well as damage to plant industry (5), lumber, etc. <...> One of the most effective and relatively cheap methods of helminth control is chemotherapy (9). <...> Today, hundreds of anthelmintics with various spectra of activity are available in the market. <...> Before chemotherapy, for thousands of years healers used various powders, decoctions, ointments, tinctures as remedies for treatment of diseases (13), including helminthiases (14); these folk remedies were prepared from minerals, fungi, plants, tissues, products of vital activity of animals (venoms of snakes and spiders, mothers milk) (15), and even whole animals (leeches, bees, etc.). <...> Anthelmintics were originally called “vermifuges” (from Latin: vermus - worm, fugere - expulsion) (14). <...> A plenty of folk remedies had been established (16) and included in reference books of ancient and medieval philosophers and healers. <...> Hippocrates <...>