Word: trueta
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Starved Cortex. In the course of solving this puzzle, Dr. Trueta's research group happened on something with far more exciting possibilities. Physiologists have generally supposed that kidney blood circulation follows a fixed route, with most of the blood circulating through the tiny vessels in the kidneys' cortex (outer layer). The Trueta research showed that the kidneys have an emergency detour for the blood...
Following up this discovery, Trueta's investigators found that short-circuiting of the kidney cortex may be produced by many different stimuli. Direct electrical stimulation of certain nerves produced the same result; so did severe hemorrhages, heavy doses of certain hormones (e.g., adrenalin, pituitrin), and injections of the poison secreted by staphylococcus germs. All of these stimuli, the investigators decided, activate nerves which constrict the kidneys' blood vessels and divert the blood flow from the small vessels in the cortex to the larger ones in the medulla. Lack of blood in the cortex, in turn, raises blood pressure...
Emotional Storms. Doctors have long been aware that certain types of hypertension (high blood pressure) are connected with kidney disturbances. They have also observed that anger or other emotional storms may raise blood pressure. What the Trueta group demonstrated was the physiological chain of events that leads to hypertension. And they showed that the hitherto unexplained form of high blood pressure known as "essential hypertension," which accounts for 95% of all cases, stems from the kidneys...
...kidneys are only the trigger. What pulls the trigger? The Trueta group's guess: shocks to the nervous system, arising either from injuries or emotional stresses and strains...
Reporting their findings last week in a book published in Britain (Studies of the Renal Circulation; Blackwell Scientific Publications),* Trueta's group hopefully declared: "We believe that [the primary factors causing high blood pressure] will eventually be found in the central nervous system, even in the human mind itself, and that with their discovery will come a complete understanding of the condition known as 'essential hypertension,' affording a new hope for the victims of this disease of civilized...