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Patients with severe essential hypertension have been carefully studied periodically in an attempt to group them as to probable life expectancy. Forty such patients have been observed while on oral 1-hydrazinophthalazine and a low salt diet. Nineteen of the 33 patients in the groups having a relatively good prognosis for survival had some decrease in diastolic pressure. Only one of seven patients in Smithwick group IV had a satisfactory reduction in blood pressure.

A method of tritium labeling. which depends upon the rapid exchange of tritium with carboxyl hydrogen atoms in the presence of a noble metal catalyst such as rhodium, is reported. The specific activities of the product obtained are dependent on the fraction of T in the H gas employed in the exchange reaction. The method was applied to the synthesis of tritiated acetlc acid and tritiated N- methylpyrrole. The activity of acetic acid obtained by decomposition of labeled malonic acid was 36 mC/mole wliile that of Nmethylpyrrole obtained by decarboxylation of N-methylpyrrole-2-carboxylic acid was 8 mC/mole. The efficiency of the exchange-decarboxylation method is approximates 1O/sup 5/ times that found when the Wilzbach method is applied to the labeling of toluene. While the method of labeling described is not so general as that of Wilzbach, it should be applicable to any compound containing a carboxyl group that can be decarboxylated readily. ft has the advantage of employing low activities of T and short exposure times and producing products of high purity labeled in specific positions. (TCO)

Following the intracisternal injection of colloidal kaolin, the rat will develop arterial hypertension associated with increased intracranial pressure.12 For the sake of brevity, we shall refer to such an animal as a kaolin-hypertensive rat. The elevation of blood pressure was interpreted as being the result of hyperactivity of the vasoconstrictor center in consequence of the increased intracranial pressure.Because ergotamine is known to paralyze peripheral parts of the sympathetic nervous system, it seemed possible that this substance might influence arterial hypertension so produced. Hogler3 has reported no lowering of the blood pressure by ergotamine tartrate when given in the dose of one mg to dogs made hypertensive by kaolin. However, Hogler's first blood pressure readings were taken one hour after the injection of ergotamine tartrate so that a transitory effect might have been overlooked.In addition to producing prolonged hypertension associated with increased intracranial pressure, we also elicited...

SummaryThree out of 4 dogs made hypertensive by intracisternal injections of kaolin showed a persistent elevation of arterial blood pressure following bilateral adrenalectomy, as long as they were adequately maintained by the use of salt and of a non-pressor-extract of the adrenal cortex. The fall in blood pressure of the fourth animal was attributed to the spontaneous remission of the experimental hypertension.

Certain animals develop an increased intracranial pressure associated with vascular hypertension following the intracisternal injection of colloidal kaolin. This syndrome was first described in the dog by Heller1 and his associates, and recently confirmed by Jeffers, Lindauer and Lukens.2 A similar response in the white rat has been described by Griffith, Jeffers, and Lindauer,3,4 and Griffith and Roberts.5 They found that the cerebrospinal pressure, normally less that 100 mm of water, was increased to about 260 mm, while the blood pressure, normally below 140 mm of mercury, ranged between 150 and 300 mm. At necropsy internal hydrocephalus was found in rats that had survived a month or more. The present report deals with similar studies in cats.The method for measuring blood pressure was that described by Griffith and Collins6 for man and by Griffith7 for the rat. It consists in encircling the upper part of a limb with a blood pressure cuff constructed of appropriate size, while blood flow is observed thr...

Physiognomic color responses in perception, imagery, and affect were investigated. Maluma and taketa, nonsense stimuli defined by many investigators as physiognomic, were utilized as prototypical physiognomic stimuli, along with eight other stimuli of various sorts. In Experiment 1, 22 subjects matched the colors of the stimuli; in Experiment 2, 27 subjects reported their imagery to the stimuli; and in Experiment 3, 16 subjects gave their color preferences for the stimuli. The Munsell sets of colors were employed throughout. Significant differences between the physiognomic and other stimuli were found on the brightness and saturation of color matches, images, and preferences. Other differences (e.g., the latency of color images) were also present. Distinctions were also noted between the two physiognomic stimuli. These results support the priority of innate and perceptual processes in physiognomy over those of learning and memory, although some ambiguities still remain.

A patient with primary aldosteronism is presented. Renal biopsy in this patient showed no increase in granules of the juxtaglomerular cells. In contrast, hypergranular juxtaglomerular cells as an indication of increased renin secretion have been observed in the kidneys of patients with secondary aldosteronism. It is suggested that renal biopsy and study of the juxtaglomerular apparatus may be useful in the differential diagnosis of primary and secondary aldosteronism.

The principal measures which are available for the treatment of patients with essential hypertension at the present time are (1) diets, especially those low in sodium; (2) drugs having a general sedative effect or a specific hypotensive effect, and (3) surgery of the sympathetic nervous system with or without resection of adrenal tissue. The first operative attempt to influence hypertension by resection of the abdominal sympathetic system is accredited to Pieri in 1930. He performed a resection of the greater splanchnic nerve. Adson and Brown in 1934 described intraspinal rhizotomy. Adson and Peet in 1935 described the procedures that are generally known by their names. Thoracolumbar sympathectomy was first performed by Smithwick, in 1938, and described by him in 1940. Green first attempted total bilateral adrenalectomy and reported the results in one case in 1950. 1 We recently have reported our experience with 126 patients subjected to combined sympathectomy-adrenalectomy. 2

ConclusionsAt least in certain cases, rutin appears to have the property of decreasing capillary fragility in subjects in whom this fragility is initially increased. In this effect it resembles hesperidin.