THE REPORTED INHIBITION OF DCA-SALT HYPERTENSION BY ANTIHISTAMINIC DRUGS: EFFECTS OF SANDOSTENE, PHENERGAN AND CHLORPROMAZINE1

TREATMENT of uninephrectomized rats with desoxycorticosterone acetate (DCA) and salt results in renal, splanchnic, myocardial and cerebral vascular lesions identical with those of experimental renal hypertension and similar in many respects to the lesions of hypertensive disease in human beings (Selye, 1942; Masson et al., 1949). The mechanism of formation of these lesions is unknown, except that arterial hypertension seems to be a contributory factor. That altered vascular permeability, with trapping in the vessel walls of a protein component of plasma might play a role in hyalinization and fibrinoid change in the arterioles is suggested in part by the microscopic appearance of some of these lesions. This possibility receives further support from the finding that desoxycorticosterone, in the presence of excess Na ion, increases permeability of vessels in preparations of isolated limbs (Tripod and Meier, 1952). The importance of increased permeability in this connection seems to have been confirmed by the...