BLOOD PRESSURE IN INFANCY AND IN CHILDHOOD

Abstract

BLOOD PRESSURE IN EARLY LIFE The first systematic study of blood pressure in children was made by von Basch in 1894. Using a tonometer of his own design, he took the blood pressure of sixty-eight children, in Monti's Clinic in Vienna. Friedman, in 1893 in Heubner's Clinic, repeated von Basch's work. He took the reading of a number of children, but drew no definite conclusions. The first important work on blood pressure in children in America was done by Cook in 1903, while working at the Thomas Wilson Sanitarium for sick children at Johns Hopkins. In the hope of obtaining a more accurate criterion for the stimulation of sick infants and young children, he employed blood pressure examinations. Although numerous methods have been used and recommended for the determination of blood pressure in children, Korotkoff's auscultatory method, with a modification of the Riva-Rocci mercury manometer, using a 9 cm. cuff,