This volume presents the proceedings of the Symposium on "Hypertension .* Mechanisms and Management" held at the "Akademie der Wissenschaften" in Mainz on the 1st and 2nd October, 1979. The Symposion has been dedicated to Professor Hanns-Peter Wolff, who has been the Chairman of the First De- partment ofIntemal Medicine at the University of Mainz since 1968, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. The conference was mainly devoted to pathophysiological aspects of high blood pressure. A first series of papers discussed the possible role of the sympathetic nervous system in the pathogenesis of arterial hypertension. Despite consider- able methodological progress made in the measurement of circulating catechol- amines it is still unclear whether catecholamines are raised in essential hyper- tension, and if so, whether this is important for the pathogenesis of high blood pressure. Practically all papers of the first session were related to this question. For several decades the renin-angiotensin system has been the central topic of any hypertension meeting. We thought that additional lectures or papers on this subject might fail to provide new aspects.We therefore asked five experts who have been working in this field for many years to discuss in a Round Table whether or not the renin-angiotensin system might playa significant role in human hypertension. A further topic were the renal tissue hormones other than renin-angiotensin. The papers discussed in particular kallikrein and its possible role in activating renin and thereby possibly contributing to high blood pressure.
