Harry Goldblatt and the discovery of renin

As early as the mid–19th century, physicians had noted that patients with kidney disease and those with long-term high blood pressure (hypertension) both had enlarged heart muscles. The first clue to this kidney–hypertension connection came from physiologists Robert Tigerstedt and Per Bergman who injected kidney extracts into rabbits, thus triggering a dramatic rise in blood pressure. In a prophetic explanation, they suggested that the kidneys produced a soluble protein— they called it renin—that triggered a rise in blood pressure (1).