The paper by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, which follows directly, is one of a series of lectures sponsored by the Medical Student Council. The Lectureship, instituted early in 1974, was designed to bring outstanding teachers of medicine and leaders in public health to the Yale University School of Medicine. This program was organized entirely by medical students on behalf of the student body. The...

THE medical literature over the past half dozen or more years has been strewn with reports and commentaries on the treatment of mild hypertension. Those who are particularly influenced by the evidence from the insurance companies point to the well-documented increased mortality in the presence of even a little high blood pressure, cite the efficacy of lowering blood pressure by various nonpharm...