TREATMENT OF ESSENTIAL AND MALIGNANT HYPERTENSION BY SECTION OF ANTERIOR NERVE ROOTS

Abstract

Since no medical treatment is known which will lower the level of the blood pressure of a patient suffering from essential hypertension more than temporarily, surgical measures deserve trial. That it is desirable to reduce the level of the blood pressure in such a patient has not always been conceded. Clinical observation, however, suggests that continued hypertension of itself causes vascular disease. Temporary reduction of an abnormally high pressure by means of drugs, such as sodium thiocyanate or colloidal sulfur, has not been observed in this clinic to produce symptoms and signs of inadequate gaseous metabolism or disturbances of tissue nutrition. These might have been expected were hypertension a compensatory mechanism serving some useful purpose. Nor have recent observations¹supported the belief of Traube that the arterial pressure must be abnormally elevated to maintain an adequate perfusion of blood through the kidneys. Reduction, especially of the diastolic pressure, might