Investigation of the literature on the operative therapy of essential hypertension indicates inadequate use of control studies. This is especially significant in relation to the question of whether nonspecific surgical measures influence hypertensive disease. In 1930 Ayman1evaluated the therapeutic results in cases of essential hypertension by interpreting symptomatic relief. He stated that the successful treatment of essential hypertension by the use of many different drugs and methods of treatment has been reported at least 200 times in the decade 1920 to 1930. Since then an equal number of new types of treatment for essential hypertension have been introduced, many enthusiastically. They stay momentarily and then rapidly wane into obscurity. At present a constantly increasing number of operations are being proposed and performed as treatment for essential hypertension.2We have analyzed these with the results published and, as Ayman1found previously, noted that the articles dealing with