The Relation of Vascular Disease to the Hypertensive State

IN APRIL, 1943, the anatomic findings observed in renal biopsies removed from 100 hypertensive patients subjected to bilateral dorsolumbar sympathectomy were reported.1 The biopsies were graded according to the severity of the vascular disease without knowledge of any clinical data about the patient, and it was found that there were enough differences in the degree of vascular disease to classify the group into five grades of advancing severity (Grades 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4). In this first series 7 per cent of cases were Grade 0, 21 per cent Grade 1, and 25 per cent Grade 2 — that . . .