pressures were lowered. They found that alcohol in ordinary doses
did not influence the venous pressure, although it lowered the
arterial pressure; but very large doses lowered the arterial and
raised the venous pressure. They think that when the venous pressure
is increased only by large doses of epinephrin, pituitary extract
and alcohol, the effect is due to failure of the heart, although it
may be due to an increase of carbon dioxid in the blood, in other
words, to asphyxia.




HYPERTENSION


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 arteries. 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