Hypertension: a personal odyssey

This is a brief history of my personal experiences at the Mount Sinai Hospital and Medical School, preceding and interlaced with the research that eventually involved hypertension. My research on the hearts, kidneys, and lungs of animals was followed by work on clubbing of the fingers, hypertrophic osteoarthropathy, and myocardial infarction. This finally led to studying vascular resistance and reactivity in hypertension and other vascular diseases. I investigated and treated special causes of hypertension and developed proper testing and effective treatment of "essential" hypertension. We established the hypertension clinic and laboratory to accomplish these objectives. As for etiology, hereditary and environmental factors have become better defined, especially in "essential" hypertension. Study of the spontaneously hypertensive rat may clarify some hereditary factors in hypertension, although its relationship to human essential hypertension remains questionable. In addition, basic work on the physiology and molecular biology of uterine and vascular smooth muscle has shed some light on the complexities of restenosis after angioplasty, arteriosclerosis, left ventricular hypertrophy, and hypertension. The help and encouragement of teachers and colleagues throughout the years has made all this effort possible.