THE SURGICAL APPROACH TO HYPERTENSION

Hypertension is a common symptom of several fundamentally different disorders. Its medical treatment in the past has consisted of rest, the use of sedatives, vasodilators and toxic depressants and psychoanalytic sessions.¹It can be safely stated that none of these measures have ever cured or arrested the progress of hypertension, although their temporary, palliative value, especially in the early stages, cannot be questioned. Recently a depressor substance has been isolated from the normal kidney and used in lowering the blood pressure of animals and of man.²It is too early to judge the merits of this extract in combating hypertension. The fact remains that cardiovascular-renal disease, with hypertension as its dominant symptom, stands first in the mortality list today and is responsible for more than half a million deaths annually in the United States. After the age of 45 the death rate from this condition is four times