1. Hypertensive patients (systolic arterial blood pressure upward of 160mm Hg.) in a rural village, who had been found electrocardiographically abnormal, were subjected to an observation for a period of four years. Stochastically, no significant change was noticed in the values of systolic, mean and diastolic pressure respectively, provided that the patients had received in the meantime no systematic medical treatment. Moreover, according to the results of a long-term observation undertaken separately on another group of hypertensive cases, values of their blood pressure made no seasonal fluctuations.
2. As for their electrocardiographical findings, those who had shown abnormal signs four years ago but received almost no treatment since then, remained the same and showed no improvement in their status, as confirmed by the present study.
3. Comparing the serum components of the hypertensive patients in rural and urban areas, no significant difference was obtained between the two groups as to the amounts of serum-albumin and of serum-cholesterin.Serum-sodium values were higher in the rural group than in the urban group at 0.05 level of significance. On the contrary, serum-potassium values were lower in the rural group at 0.05 level of sighificance. The dietary habit and the mode of living in rural area, such as excessive intake of salt and hard physical labor involved in farming, would account for their hypopotassemia. Last year the authors reported on the marked higher incidence of electrocardiographical abnormalities among the hypertensive patients of rural area as compared with those of urban area; hypopotassemia in rural patients may constitute an answer, if not the sole answer, to such phenomenon.
