A matter of degree: The normalisation of hypertension, c.1940-2000

Histories of the Normal and the Abnormal: Social and Cultural Histories of Norms and Normativity

Volumn , Issue , 2007, Pages 245-261

  Timmermann, Carsten ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84909087800     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.4324/9780203028254     Document Type: Chapter

References (93)

1. Bryan Williams, 'Drug Treatment of Hypertension: Most Patients Will Need a Treatment Cocktail - Including a Thiazide Diuretic' British Medical Journal, 2003, 326, pp. 61-2.
2. On the history of risk factors, see William G. Rothstein, Public Health and the Risk Factor: A History of an Uneven Medical Revolution, Rochester, NY, University of Rochester Press, 2003.
3. Robert A. Aronowitz, Making Sense of Illness: Science, Society, and Disease, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
4. Gareth Beevers, Gregory Y. H. Lip and Eoin O'Brian, 'ABC of Hypertension: The Pathophysiology of Hypertension', British Medical Journal, 2001, 322, pp. 912-16.
5. The guidelines issued in 2003 in the seventh report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure distinguish between normal blood pressure (&<120/80 mmHg), prehypertension (120/80 to 139/89), stage 1 hypertension (140/90 to 159/99) and stage 2 hypertension (160/100 and higher). See Aram V. Chobanian, 'The Seventh Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Treatment of High Blood Pressure: The JNC 7 Report', Journal of the American Medical Association, 2003, 289, pp. 2560-72.
6. See also Janice Hopkins Tanne, 'US Guidelines Say Blood Pressure of 120/80mmHG is not "normal" ', British Medical Journal, 2003, 326, p. 1104.
7. C. T. Dollery, 'A Clinician Looks at the Future' British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1982, 13, pp. 127-32; interview with Professor Sir Colin Dollery, conducted by the author on 3 July 2002.
8. Georges Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological, New York, Zone Books, 1991.
9. A useful summary and critical evaluation of the main arguments can be found in Mary Tiles, 'The Normal and Pathological: The Concept of a Scientific Medicine', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 1993, 44, pp. 729-42.
10. For a discussion of the book in the context of contemporary debates over the social construction of scientific knowledge, see Malcolm Nicolson, 'The Social and the Cognitive: Resources for the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge', Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 1991, 22, pp. 347-69.
11. For a recent appraisal and a discussion of the links in their work, see Christiane Sinding, 'The Power of Norms: Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, and the History of Medicine', in Frank Huisman and John Harley Warner, eds, Locating Medical History: The Stories and Their Meanings, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004, pp. 262-84.
12. Some of the links are discussed by Tiles, 'The Normal and Pathological'. See also Gary Gutting, Michel Foucault's Archaeology of Scientific Reason, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
13. For further appraisals, see the papers in a double issue of Economy and Society dedicated to Canguilhem's work (vol. 27, 1998, issues 2 and 3, pp. 151-331).
14. Dollery, 'A Clinician Looks at the Future', p. 127.
15. For the clinical symptoms, see also George W. Pickering, High Blood Pressure, London, Churchill, 1955, pp. 241-312.
16. Frederick H. Smirk, High Arterial Pressure, Oxford, Blackwell, 1957, pp. 83-116.
17. The dispute is documented in J. D. Swales, ed., Platt versus Pickering: An Episode in Recent Medical History, London, The Keynes Press and British Medical Association, 1985.
18. Christopher Lawrence, 'Incommunicable Knowledge: Science, Technology and the Clinical Art in Britain, 1850-1914' Journal of Contemporary History, 1985, 20, pp. 503-20;.
19. Christopher Lawrence, 'Still Incommunicable: Clinical Holists and Medical Knowledge in Interwar Britain', in Christopher Lawrence and George Weisz, eds, Greater than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine 1920-1950, New York, Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 94-111.
20. Christopher C. Booth, 'Clinical Research', in Joan Austoker and Linda Bryder, eds, Historical Perspectives on the Role of the MRC, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 205-41.
21. For the rise of laboratory medicine see also Steve Sturdy and Roger Cooter, 'Science, Scientific Management and the Transformation of Medicine in Britain, c. 1870-1950' History of Science, 1998, 36, pp. 421-66.
22. On the history of the MRC, see Austoker and Bryder, eds, Historical Perspectives.
23. A. Landsborough Thomson, Half a Century of Medical Research, vol. 1: Origins and Policy of the Medical Research Council (UK), London, HMSO, 1973, and vol. 2: The Programme of the Medical Research Council (UK), London, HMSO, 1975.
24. Cf. Booth, 'Clinical Research'; Henry Dale, 'Thomas Renton Elliot, 1877-1961', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1961, 7, pp. 53-74;.
25. Arthur Hollman, Sir Thomas Lewis: Pioneer Cardiologist and Clinical Scientist, London, Springer, 1997;.
26. Helen Valier, 'The Politics of Scientific Medicine in Manchester', unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2002. Lewis, who had been on the payroll of the Medical Research Committee since 1916 was also greatly influenced by James MacKenzie.
27. See also Joel D. Howell, '"Soldier's Heart": The Redefinition of Heart Disease and Speciality Formation in Early Twentieth Century Great Britain' Medical History, Supplement 5, 1985, pp. 34-52.
28. John McMichael, 'Cardiovascular Research: Introduction' British Medical Bulletin, 1952, 8, pp. 301-3.
29. John McMichael and W. Stanley Peart, 'George White Pickering 26 June 1904-3 September 1980' Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1982, 28, pp. 431-49.
30. See Platt's memoirs: Robert Platt, Private and Controversial, London, Cassell, 1972; and the obituary: 'Lord Platt of Grindleford, Bt, M.D. Sheff., M.Sc. Manc., F.R.C.P.', Lancet, 1978, i, pp. 114-15.
31. For the significance of this development, see Valier, 'The Politics of Scientific Medicine in Manchester'.
32. Robert Platt and S. W. Stanbury, 'Sympathectomy in Hypertension', Lancet, 1950, i, pp. 651-9. In this class of operations, surgeons removed sections of the so-called sympathetic ganglia, nerves that run on both sides of the vertebral column and that control the automatic responses of the body to all sorts of environmental stimuli.
33. See F. H. Smirk, High Arterial Pressure, Oxford, Blackwell, 1957, pp. 401-28.
34. Robert Platt, 'Heredity in Hypertension', Quarterly Journal of Medicine, 1947, 16, pp. 111-33.
35. We should beware of the temptation to see molecular genetics as the main origin of medical genetics, as many authors on modern medicine seem to do. See Peter A. Coventry and John V. Pickstone, 'From What and Why Did Genetics Emerge as a Medical Specialism in the 1970s in the UK? A Case History of Research, Policy and Services in the Manchester Region of the NHS', Social Science and Medicine, 1999, 49, pp. 1227-38.
36. Platt, 'Heredity in Hypertension', quoted in Swales, Platt versus Pickering, p. 8.
37. George W. Pickering, 'The Natural History of Hypertension' British Medical Bulletin, 1952, 8, pp. 305-9.
38. M. Hamilton, George W. Pickering, J. A. Fraser Roberts and G. S. C. Sowry, 'The Ætiology of Essential Hypertension. 1. The Arterial Pressure in the General Population' Clinical Science, 1954, 13, pp. 11-35;.
39. M. Hamilton, George W. Pickering, J. A. Fraser Roberts and G. S. C. Sowry, 'The Ætiology of Essential Hypertension. 2. Scores for Arterial Blood Pressures Adjusted for Differences in Age and Sex' Clinical Science, 1954, 13, pp. 37-49;.
40. George W. Pickering, J. A. Fraser Roberts and G. S. C. Sowry, 'The Ætiology of Essential Hypertension. 3. The Effect of Correcting for Arm Circumference on the Growth Rate of Arterial Pressure with Age' Clinical Science, 13, 1954, pp. 267-71;.
41. M. Hamilton, George White Pickering, J. A. Fraser Roberts and G. S. C. Sowry, 'The Ætiology of Essential Hypertension. 4. The Role of Inheritance' Clinical Science, 1954, 13, pp. 273-304.
42. George W. Pickering, Hypertension: Causes, Consequences and Management, Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1974, p. 33.
43. Thomas R. Dawber, The Framingham Study: The Epidemiology of Atherosclerotic Disease, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1980;.
44. W. E. Miall, 'FollowUp Study of Arterial Pressure in the Population of a Welsh Mining Valley' British Medical Journal, 1959, ii, pp. 1204-10.
45. William B. Kannel, Thomas R. Dawber, Abraham Kagan, Nicholas Revotskie and Joseph Stokes, 'Factors of Risk in the Development of Coronary Heart Disease: Six-Year Follow-Up Experience' Annals of Internal Medicine, 1961, 55, pp. 33-50.
46. David Armstrong, 'The Rise of Surveillance Medicine' Sociology of Health and Illness, 1995, 17, pp. 393-404;.
47. David Armstrong, Political Anatomy of the Body: Medical Knowledge in Britain in the Twentieth Century, Cambridge, MA, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
48. This is indicated in a lecture draft by Pickering called 'The Genetic Factor in Essential Hypertension', Wellcome Library, PP/GWP/D.2. For the history of medical genetics in Britain and the important role of Fraser Roberts, see Coventry and Pickstone, 'From What and Why Did Genetics Emerge as a Medical Specialism?', and Peter A. Coventry, 'The Dynamics of Medical Genetics: The Development and Articulation of Clinical and Technical Services under the NHS, especially at Manchester', unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 2000. On Fraser Roberts, see also P. E. Polani, 'John Alexander Fraser Roberts, 8 September 1899-15 January 1987', Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1992, 38, pp. 306-22. On the rise of statistical thinking and its implications, see Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
49. On e ugenics and its transformations in the light of the Nazi atrocities in Germany, see Daniel J. Kevles, 'Out of Eugenics: The Historical Politics of the Human Genome', in Daniel J. Kevles and Leroy Hood, The Code of Codes: Scientific and Social Issues in the Human Genome Project, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 3-36.
50. Diane Paul, The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1998.
51. Letter, R. Platt to H. Harris, quoted after Coventry and Pickstone, 'From What and Why Did Genetics Emerge as a medical specialism?', p. 1232.
52. On the normalising power of graphical representations, see David Gugerli and Barbara Orland, eds, Ganz normale Bilder: Historische Beiträge zur visuellen Herstellung von Selbstverständlichkeit, Zurich, Chronos, 2002.
53. S. L. Morrison and Jerry N. Morris, 'Epidemiological Observations on High Blood-Pressure without Evident Causes' Lancet, 1959, ii, 864-70;.
54. William E. Miall, 'Follow-Up Study of Arterial Pressure in the Population of a Welsh Mining Valley' British Medical Journal, 1959, ii, pp. 1204-10.
55. For the history of these units, see A. R. Ness, L. A. Reynolds and E. M. Tansey, eds, Population-Based Research in South Wales: The MRC Pneumoconiosis Research Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit, London, Wellcome Trust, 2002;.
56. Shaun Murphy, 'The Early Days of the MRC Social Medicine Unit' Social History of Medicine, 1999, 12, pp. 389-406;.
57. Virginia Berridge, 'Celebration: Jerry Morris', International Journal of Epidemiology, 2001, 30, pp. 1141-5.
58. Sturdy and Cooter, 'Science, Scientific Management and the Transformation of Medicine in Britain'.
59. Armstrong, 'The Rise of Surveillance Medicine';.
60. Armstrong, Political Anatomy of the Body.
61. Quoted after Polani, 'John Alexander Fraser Roberts', p. 319.
62. See Ness, Reynolds and Tansey, eds, Population-Based Research in South Wales;.
63. Murphy, 'The Early Days of the MRC Social Medicine Unit'; and Berridge, 'Celebration: Jerry Morris'.
64. Rothstein, Public Health and the Risk Factor.
65. See Measuring the Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Symposium, Supplement to American Journal of Public Health, April 1957, p. 47.
66. David Spurgeon, 'NIH Promotes Use of Lower Cost Drugs for Hypertension' British Medical Journal, 2004, 328, p. 539.
67. W. S. Peart, 'The Problem of Treatment in Mild Hypertension' British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1982, 13, pp. 82-90;.
68. Medical Research Council Working Party, 'MRC Trial of Treatment of Mild Hypertension: Principal Results', British Medical Journal, 291, 1985, pp. 97-104.
69. For an insightful analysis of the links between technological innovation and the framing of disease, see Keith Wailoo, Drawing Blood: Technology and Disease Identity in Twentieth-Century America, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
70. Pickering, Hypertension: Causes, Consequences and Management, p. 33.
71. Platt and Stanbury, 'Sympathectomy in Hypertension';.
72. George W. Pickering, A. Dickson Wright and R. H. Heptinstall, 'The Reversibility of Malignant Hypertension' Lancet, 1952, ii, pp. 952-6.
73. Austin E. Doyle, 'The Introduction of Ganglion Blocking Drugs for the Treatment of Hypertension' British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1982, 13, pp. 63-5;.
74. William D. M. Paton, 'Hexamethonium' British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 1982, 13, pp. 7-14;.
75. F. H. Smirk, 'Hypotensive Actions of Hexa-methonium Bromide and Some of Its Homologues: Their Use in High Blood-Pressure' Lancet, 1952, ii, 1002-5;.
76. Edward D. Freis, 'Recent Developments in the Treatment of Hypertension', Medical Clinics of North America, 1954, 38, pp. 363-74.
77. George W. Pickering papers, Wellcome Library, London, PP/GWP/C.6/69.
78. Robert M. Kaiser, 'The Introduction of the Thiazides: A Case Study in Twentieth-Century Therapeutics', in Gregory J. Higby and Elaine C. Stroud, eds, The Inside Story of Medicines: A Symposium, Madison, WI, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1997, pp. 121-37;.
79. Karl H. Beyer, 'Discovery of the Thiazides: Where Biology and Chemistry Meet' Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 1977, 20, pp. 410-20;.
80. Karl H. Beyer, 'Chlorothiazide' British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 13, 1982, pp. 15-24.
81. Armstrong, Political Anatomy of the Body, p. 67.
82. John V. Pickstone, 'The Biographical and the Analytical: Towards a Historical Model of Science and Practice in Modern Medicine', in Ilana Löwy, ed., Medicine and Change: Historical and Sociological Studies of Medical Innovation, Paris, Les Editions INSERM - John Libbey, 1993, pp. 23-46.
83. For the displacement model, see N. D. Jewson, 'The Disappearance of the Sick Man from Medical Cosmology, 1770-1870' Sociology, 1976, 10, pp. 225-44.
84. Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic, London, Tavistock, 1973.
85. In the index to The Normal and the Pathological we find nine references to Goldstein. For more on Goldstein and holism in interwar Germany, see Anne Harrington, Reenchanted Science: Holism in German Culture from Wilhelm II to Hitler, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1996. See also Lawrence and Weisz, eds, Greater than the Parts;.
86. Carsten Timmermann, 'Constitutional Medicine, Neo-romanticism, and the Politics of Anti-mechanism in Interwar Germany', Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 2001, 75, 717-39.
87. There are also nine references to Sigerist's work in The Normal and the Pathological. On Sigerist, see Elizabeth Fee and Theodore M. Brown, eds, Making Medical History: The Life and Times of Henry E. Sigerist, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
88. See also Carsten Timmermann, 'Weimar Medical Culture: Doctors, Healers and the Crisis of Medicine in Interwar Germany, 1918-1933', unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Manchester, 1999.
89. Lawrence, 'Incommunicable Knowledge';.
90. Christopher Lawrence, 'Still Incommunicable'.
91. Bernard Isaacs, 'Has Geriatrics Advanced?' in Bernard Isaacs, ed., Recent Advances in Geriatrics, London, Churchill Livingstone, 1978, pp. 1-5 at p. 2.
92. Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological, p. 193.
93. Sonja Olin Lauritzen and Lisbeth Sachs, 'Normality, Risk and the Future: Implicit Communication of Threat in Health Surveillance' Sociology of Health and Illness, 2001, 23, pp. 497-516.