The important and difficult appraisal of the role of sympathectomy in the treatment of hypertension and hypertensive heart disease requires all the follow-up information that is available. There has been much discussion of the status of this therapy in the past with ardent advocates and equally ardent opponents. Time and continued interest in constant improvement both of the selection of cases and of the technics will eventually give the answers. Meanwhile we may hope that some effective treatment less severe and radical than either sympathectomy or rigid diets may be introduced to control hypertension or, still better, to prevent it. During the past year there was published a review of the effect of sympathectomy on the blood pressure in hypertension in the case of 292 patients on the public wards of the Massachusetts General Hospital. 1 Although the lumbodorsal technic was used on a considerable majority of these patients the
