The distribution of oxidative enzymes in the nephron of normotensive and hypertensive humans and animals.

Because of its high incidence, wide distribution and socio-economic consequences, hypertension is one of the main health problems of today. Clues to the etiology of hypertensive vascular disease have accumulated at a steadily increasing rate but a satisfactory answer, which had seemed so near in a number of occasions, has repeatedly receded from the grasp of hopeful investigators. The participation of the kidney in the maintenance of increased systemic arterial pressure has been intimated since the observations of Tigerstedt and Bergman in 1898 (1) and the classical experiments of Goldblatt in 1934 (2). Today a vast amount of experimental and clinical data attest to the fact that the kidney is in some way concerned in the pathogenesis of arterial hypertension (3-5)