Dr. Robinson is in favor of psychotherapy in combination with medical measures in the treatment of hypertension. He objects to surgical procedures whose success he believes to be due to some indirect mechanism such as shock, bed rest after the operation, psychogenic factors, release of renal spasm. The author demands a return to the clinic for the study of the factors which cause disturbances of physiology in man. The ease with which physiological disturbances can be demonstrated in the laboratory and reproduced in animals, too easily distracts interest from clinical study.

The author, holding that hypertension is of central origin, suggests that we should not consider it a disease sui generis, but just one outward manifestation of a much broader disease process including somatic and mental disorders and frequently associated with such entities as diabetes, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, glomerulonephritis, arthritis, asthma, neuroses, melancholia etc.