A simple, rapid and sensitive spectrophotometric procedure has been proposed for the assay of fluoroquinolones viz., ciprofloxacin (CPF) and norfloxacin (NRF), and antiallergic drugs viz., methdilazine hydrochloride (MDH) and isothipendyl hydrochloride (IPH) in bulk and pharmaceutical formulations. The method is based on the reaction of selected drugs with Brilliant Blue G (BBG) in NaOAc-AcOH buffer of pH 4.0 for CPF and NRF or in neutral medium for MDH and IPH to give chloroform soluble ion-association complexes. The effects of various parameters have been studied. The ion-association complexes exhibited absorption maxima at 610 nm for CPF, at 614 nm for NRF and MDH, and at 612 nm for IPH. Beer's law plots were obeyed in the concentration ranges of 0.5-6.0, 0.4-8.0, 0.1-6.0 and 0.2-6.1 (mg ml(-1) for CPF, NRF, MDH and IPH, respectively, with correlation coefficients not less than 0.9969. Molar absorptivity values as calculated from the Beer's law data were found to be 2.86 x 10(4), 2.64 x 10(4), 3.13 x 10(4) and 5.51 x 10(4) mol(-1) cm(-1) for CPF, NRF, MDH and IPH, respectively. The influence of commonly employed excipients in the determination of the studied drugs has been studied. The results obtained by the proposed method were statistically validated.