The Place of Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibition in the Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases

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Abstract
Elsewhere in this issue, Williams updates the pharmacology of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors.1 The development of this class of drugs is a prime example of how a serendipitous finding — the observation that a Brazilian snake venom contained kininase-inactivating factors2 — was taken up by basic scientists, who showed its physiologic relevance by defining the relations between vasoactive peptide hormones and their enzymatic degradation.3 This led biochemists to purify and characterize the active compounds and use them to design and synthesize drugs targeting the specific enzymatic system.4 Physiologists and clinical researchers then used them to investigate the role of the renin–angiotensin . . .