Part II: The Role of the Kidney in Hypertension

These findings led to the clinical recognition of renovascular hypertension, the application of surgery for its relief and the elucidation of the role of the renin-angiotensin system in the physiology of health and the pathogenesis of disease. In the 45 years since Goldblatt's publication on the experimental induction of renovascular hypertension, overwhelmingly conclusive evidence has confirmed his view that renal ischemia is the cause of the hypertension and that this comes about by the release of increased amounts of renin from the ischemic kidney. Considerable confusion in the experimental and clinical literature resulted from the admixture of "one-kidney Goldblatt" and "two-kidney Goldblatt" models. As these two models have been correctly applied to clinical disease, the "one-kidney" model — one kidney clipped, the other removed — has been