ABSTRACT
Have you 'done' hypertension with your registrar lately? How many sessions did it take and what angles did you cover, I wonder? I write this while feeling a surge of unease about the whole direction of Western medicine. My favourite columnist, the ВМЈ's Minerva, mentioned she was feeling this way and wondered if all was a vast con trick led by the vested interests of the huge pharmaceutical companies. Her suggested antidote was a trip to Phil Hammond's road show. In this particular BMJ there was another article from the Little et al. paper factory, discussing how difficult it is to get an accurate blood pressure reading, that surgery readings are far too high, ambulatory may be a bit better, but best of all is a series of readings produced at home by the patient from those machines advertised with nose hair removal gadgets in the Innovations catalogue or such like. I have always felt that possession of such a machine was a sure sign of introverted hypochondria characterised by an internal locus of control nearing the top of the scale. My father, a GP too, held a similar view about thermometers, and stamped on as many as he could. I have sometimes wondered about the levels of mercury in the older population of South Shields, thank heavens it wasn't mercury sphygs that he took a dislike to.
