ABSTRACT
Hypertension underwent a remarkable transformation in the mid-twentieth century, a transformation that was linked both to demographic changes and to a number of new therapies developed in the decades following World War Two. This chapter is an attempt to trace the trajectory of moderate essential hypertension, from a mysterious risk which may or may not be responsible for early deaths and could only be tackled through lifestyle changes, towards today's multi-factorial disease and risk factor, which is managed and controlled with a variety of drugs, despite unclear and disputed boundaries between normal and pathological blood pressures. 1
