BLOOD PRESSURE MEASUREMENT AND HYPERTENSION

Stephen Hales, an English country parson, reported in his Statical Essays (1733) that the arterial blood pressure of the cannulated
artery of a recumbent horse rose more than 8 feet above the heart—the first true measurement of arterial pressure and the
beginning of sphyg- mometry.2,3,99 His pioneering efforts stood alone until 1828 when Jean Poiseuille introduced a mercury
manometer device to measure blood pressure.100,101 Over the next 60 years, various sphygmomanometric methods were developed
—notably by Ludwig (1847), Vierordt (1855), and Marey (1863)—to refine the measurement of the arterial pressure. An
inflatable arm cuff coupled to the sphygmograph, a device small enough to allow measurement outside the laboratory, was
invented by Riva-Rocci (1896), who also noted the “white-coat effect” on blood pressure. 102 Nicolai Korotkoff, a Russian military
surgeon, first auscultated brachial arterial sounds (1905), a discovery that marked the advent of modern blood pressure recording.
This auscultatory approach eventually ensured its widespread use by the 1920s. In 1939, blood pressure recordings were
standardized by committees of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the Cardiac Society of Great Britain and Ireland.