Hypertension
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Disturbances Of The Heart
Arterial hypertension may be divided into stages. In the first stage
the arteries are healthy, but the tone, owing to contraction of the
muscular walls, is too great. This condition or stage has been
termed "chronic arterial hypertension." This condition may be due to
irritants circulating in the blood, to nervous tension, to incipient
chronic interstitial nephritis, or may be the first stage of
sclerosis of the arteri
s. If from any cause this hypertension
persists, the muscular coats of the arteries will become more or
less hypertrophied, and sooner or later degenerative changes begin
in the intima, and finally fibrosis occurs in the external coat of
the arteries; in other words, arteriosclerosis is in evidence. If
the patient lives with this arteriosclerosis, a later stage of the
arterial disease may occur which has been termed atheroma, with
thickening, and possibly calcareous deposits in some parts of the
walls of the vessels, while in other parts the coats become thinner
and insufficient. At this stage the heart, which has already shown
some trouble, becomes unable to force the blood properly against
this enormous resistance of inelastic vessels and the blood pressure
begins to fail as the left ventricle weakens.
Edema, failing heart, perhaps aneurysms, peripheral obstruction, or
hemorrhages are the final conditions in this chronic disease of
arteriosclerosis.
Riesman [Footnote: Riesman: Pennsylvania Med. Jour., December, 1911,
p. 193.] divides hypertension into four classes hypertension without
apparent nephritis or arterial disease; hypertension with
arteriosclerosis; hypertension with nephritis, and hypertension with
both arteriosclerosis and nephritis. These classes are given here in
the order of the seriousness of the prognosis.