• Hypotensive agents were administered to a series of patients, some hospitalized, some ambulatory, with hypertensive disease of all degrees of severity. The drugs were given in sufficient dosage to produce either an apparent lowering of blood pressure or undesirable side-effects. Special efforts were made not only to standardize the conditions under which the blood pressures were read but also to determine the spontaneous course of the disease in each individual, to randomize the assignment of drugs and placebos, and to keep ward physicians and nurses from being influenced by a knowledge of the nature of the medication. Of the drugs that were tried, none were demonstrated to have a specific role in the treatment of hypertensive vascular disease.