No other disease is receiving more attention than arterial hypertension. The reasons for this are apparent: because it increasingly affects the population worldwide; its treatment is becoming a billion-dollar industry; its explanations are controversial- nearly every pharmaceutical company has its program for more effectively dealing with it; and there is no one robust mathematical model to study its natural history.

The present book does not aim at covering the whole of literature on the subject. Attention is instead focused on evidence upon which the concepts of arterial hypertension are based, to bring out the special problems it raises.