Abstracts Biological Sciences

A study of the arterial and arteriolar architecture in normal and diseased human kidneys by means of neoprene injections.

by Robert Hall. More

This study was undertaken with the hope that the application of a new method to the study of an old problem might remove some of the contradictory ideas that exist concerning the blood supply of the normal and abnormal human kidney. The importance of an accurate knowledge of the blood supply in the normal and diseased human kidney is realized when we consider that for over one hundred years controversy has raged in regard to the relation of renal disease to hypertension. With the recent production (1932-1938) by Goldblatt and others of experimental hypertension by constriction of the main renal artery, the importance of a knowledge of the blood supply of the kidney in hypertension is more fully apparent. The association of chronic renal disease and hypertension as a frequent direct or indirect cause of death is revealed at autopsy and indicates that any work is of value which elucidates in any way the causation of hypertension in human beings. With the knowledge gained from experimental hypertension the problem now is to determine in man the relation to the hypertension to the changes in small arteries and arterioles to the kidney. [...]