Pathophysiology of Hypertension

Előszó

Foreword
The concept of the Handbook of Hypertension developed in the late 1970s from a widespread feeling that the diversity of interests and inputs into hypertension research did not lend themselves to publication in a single textbook. The Handbook of Hypertension has now come of age and is recognized as an authoritative source of information and reviews on clinical and research aspects of high blood pressure.
As we have previously observed, the scope of hypertension in man has developed over the last 30 years from the short-term care of a small number of hospitalized patients with severely elevated blood pressure and extensive target-organ failure to a major long-term community-health problem involving a substantial proportion of the population. It appeared possible at one time that the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of hypertension could be identified by a limited number of circumscript and straightforward experiments in laboratory animals. This is clearly not so. The field of experimental hypertension has, if anything, expanded even more than clinical practice.
We shared with our Publishers the view that the accumulation of biological and clinical knowledge in the field of hypertension had outgrown the limitations of the classical monograph. Moreover, the subject of hypertension by its very nature is a multidisciplinary one, attracting such diverse professionals as biochemists and public health workers, in addition to clinicians. When one tries to envisage what would happen to a single all-encompassing book, it is clear that it could never satisfy the different groups involved in high blood pressure. Some sections would become outdated rapidly while others would have a longer life-span. An alternative, to escape from the constraints of a single textbook and to reconcile the interests of both generaUsts and specialists, was to choose the format of a serial handbook.
The present work has resulted from lengthy deliberations and discussions with many clinicians and scientists. We believe that it will be of interest to many different groups including clinical investigators, house officers, general practitioners, biomedical students, pharmacologists, pharmacists, biological scientists, physiologists and epidemiologists.
In the overall design, three or perhaps four groups comprising 6 volumes each will be pubhshed. The first group was completed in 1985 (see page ii). The present volume on 'Pathophysiology of Hypertension — Cardiovascular Aspects' — edited by Alberto Zanchetti and the late Robert Tarazi is the first of two volumes on Pathophysiology. The second, Volume 8, will deal with Regulatory Mechanisms under the same Editorship. Listed below are the titles of further volumes currently in preparation. In addition, several volumes are under consideration and plans well advanced for the publication of revised or updated editions of earlier volumes:
Behavioral Aspects of Hypertension (Editor: S. Julius)
Hypertension during Pregnancy (Editor: P.C. Rubin)
Clinical Pharmacology — revised and updated (Editor: A.E. Doyle)
Clinical Aspects — revised and updated (Editor: J.I.S. Robertson)
Hypertension in the Elderly (Editors: A. Amery and J. Staessen)
Management of the Hypertensive Patient (Editors: F.R. Buhler and J.H. Laragh)
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