Abstract
Hypertension is one of the most common medical problems in the developed world.1 It is also one of those modern conditions that we do not find discussed in old medical textbooks, and hypertension has not always been self-evidently viewed as a disease.2 High blood pressure has variously been interpreted, for example, as a physiological response to ageing, a metaphor for life under the strains of modernity, or the symptom of a so far unrecognized underlying genetic disease. Only in the last five decades it has become acceptable to treat high blood pressure, the symptom, without knowing the causes. Thanks to a new measuring technology (the familiar combination of an inflatable cuff, a sphygmomanometer and a stethoscope), blood pressure could be measured easily outside the laboratory since the early-twentieth century, but high blood pressure was not perceived as a public health problem and the method was initially not taken up widely by physicians.3 In Britain such reluctance prevailed until after World War II, as part of a general scepticism towards using laboratory methods in the clinic.4 In the US, in contrast, medical directors in the life insurance industry were quick to realize the potential of using this portable technology extensively, leading to the drawing up of tables that associated blood pressure with insurance risks.
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© 2006 Carsten Timmermann
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Timmermann, C. (2006). Hexamethonium, Hypertension and Pharmaceutical Innovation: The Transformation of an Experimental Drug in Post-war Britain. In: Timmermann, C., Anderson, J. (eds) Devices and Designs. Science, Technology and Medicine in Modern History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286405_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286405_9
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