Cure For High Blood Pressure
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ONE out of every five adults
in the United States has
either high blood pressure
or hardening of the arteries. If
you, like
С.
C. Middleton, are one
of these, you may find relief
through surgery.
At least half of the men and
women over 45 now suffering with
high blood pressure arc doomed
to die of apoplexy, Bright's disease,
angina pectoris, heart failure or
coronary thrombosis — all condi¬
tions which arc not diseases in
themselves but the outcome of high
blood pressure or hardened arte¬
ries.
Some 600,000 Americans die this
way every year. Together, high
blood pressure and hardening of
the arteries cause more than three
times as many deaths as cancer,
10 times as many as motor vehicle
accidents, more than 30 times as
many as syphilis, and about 500
times as many as infantile paral¬
ysis. And up to now. prospects
for reducing them have been slight
because very little is known about
high blood pressure’s cause and
cure.
Hope for the First Time
But today a group of America’s
most cautious authorities on cir¬
culatory disease see hope for the
first time. Within five years they
claim high blood pressure can be
brought under control and many
people saved.
С.
C. Middleton, a long-time
resident of Kannapolis, and a suf¬
ferer of high blood pressure for
nearly nine years has found this
new hope through one of these
delicate operations performed at
Duke hospital by Dr. Keith L.
Crimson, one of the country’s top¬
flight surgeons and medical clini¬
cians.
After a 46-day stay at the hos¬
pital, operations that required
approximately 96 stitches to close,
a siege of pleurisy and pneumonia.
Middleton is feeling better, he
says, than at anv time in recent
Kars. “I feel that I have been
ted from the grave.” is his cheer¬
ful reply to "How' you feeling?"
When medicines and special
treatments for high blood pressure
THE STATE. September 13. 1947
underfill results in the
of Kannapolis. Other
being studied.
If;/ JAZZY MOORE
brought little if any relief during
the long periods he suffered, Mid¬
dleton entered Duke hospital with
a blood pressure reading 210. He
left the hospital with pressure of
1 18 and is rapidly gaining a normal
pressure after five weeks of re¬
cuperating from an amazing opera¬
tion.
Surgery for high blood pressure
is carried out in two stages, about
ten days apart if there are not
complications. One stage is for
removing nerves on the right side
the other on the left side of a
chain of high tension nerve wires
called sympathetic nerces located
along either side of the spine from
the neck to the spinal base.
Two long incisions are required
for each operation, and parts of
two ribs are removed. Because the
kidney and adrenal gland may be
involved as a contributing factor
to the high blood pressure, the
surgeon inspects them carefully.
He snips off a small piece of kid¬
ney, sometimes, for microscopic
examination and checks the gland
for signs of a tumor.
Then, gently, he pushes away
the lung from the back wall of the
chest, using his rubber-gloved
hand without instruments to avoid
puncturing the delicate pleura.
This exposes the delicate nerve
chain. It lies about one inch from
the spinal column and is joined
by nerve branches emerging from
between the vertebrae.
The task of cutting out the right
segments is a tricky business be¬
cause the location of these nerves
varies widely among individuals.
Patients must expect a few
changes when the sympathetic
nerves are removed, for naturally
they perform certain functions.
For instance, denerved areas never
sweat. Middleton said after his
first operation he perspired only
on the left side of his face, neck
and body. Now he sweats only
from the waist down. It was
a scorching afternoon when this
writer talked with the man who
has been given a new lease on
use of a
mot hods
life, and there wasn’t a sign of
perspiration on his face or around
the tight fitting band of his hat.
Expected Developments
Middleton was told that one out
of every three patients undergoing
surgery for high blood pressure
will develop pleurisy or pneu¬
monia. He developed both and de¬
fied them. He was flat on his back
at Duke for 25 days following the
right-side operation when pleurisy
set in. Six weeks after the first
operation, he went under the knife
again and pneumonia kept him in
bed for another 21 days. Hvs pres¬
sure reading is low now, but rest
and inactivity at the present is
allowing his body to make neces¬
sary adjustments to keep the cir¬
culation in better balance.
Unfortunately few people know
they have high blood pressure un¬
til it has risen dangerously high.
The disease is slow and painless,
marked only by nervousness, ir¬
ritability, mild dizziness and fa¬
tigue. In most cases, elevated
pressure is not noticed until there
arc really serious symptoms-
blurred vision, agonizing head¬
aches, swollen ankles and chest
constrictions.
Besides surgical research Dr.
Keith Grimson is experimenting
with three new drugs which act
very much in the same way as
surgical removal of the nerves.
They are Priscol. Dibenamide and
Etamon. and all are in the testing
stage. Middleton said he was given
Priscol often during his stay at
Duke, but when his blood pressure
failed to respond favorably to the
drugs, surgery was the only way
out.
As things now stand, the con¬
trol of high blood pressure rests
with the combined efforts of 30
earnest scientists working under
the new American Foundation for
High Blood Pressure. As yet there
is no cure for one of America’s
most dangerous health threats. But
it should encourage the thousands
of men and women disabled by
high blood pressure to know that
brains and money are at last
banded together to look for a cure
until they find it.
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