The recent increase in incidence of chronic pancreatitis is difficult to explain. Alcohol consumption, although the prime precipitating factor, is not the only factor involved in the etiology. Differences in risk, presentation, and mortality in various areas of the world warrant investigation of the basic pathophysiologic mechanisms that are operative, and studies to determine if they are identical in all cases of chronic inflammatory diseases of the pancreas. Satisfactory animal models for human chronic pancreatitis have not yet been produced and it is still not known if the basic mechanism(s) leading to chronic pancreatitis are identical in all cases. The only theory concerning the etiopathogenesis of chronic pancreatitis that seems to have therapeutic merit involves the aberrant effects of mixed function oxidases, cytochrome P-450 induction, free radicals of oxygen, lipid peroxidation, and so on.