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(Hypertension. 1999;34:1177.)
© 1999 American Heart Association, Inc.

Editorial

Peptide Probes

Edward D. Frohlich, MD, Editor-in-Chief
L. Gabriel Navar, PhD
Richard N. Ré, MD, Associate Editors

	Introduction

 
Irvine H. Page, MD, Editor; Walter C. Alvarez, MD, Editor Emeritus

Not long ago I attended a symposium at the New York Academy of Sciences on the structure and function of biologically active peptides. The odd thing about it was that the only really widely useful peptides are insulin, vasopressin, oxytocin, and these were not discussed.

Attending the symposium were men from all over the world, and when you think that the symposium was concerned with substances such as bradykinin, kallidin, and angiotensin, none of which you may have heard of, perhaps it will be a little clearer why I think it worth a moment of your time.

We are said to be in an age of cultural decline; there are no giant novelists, musicians, artists, or philosophers. The great age of mediocrity and conformity is said to be on us. This may or may not be true, but, for science and medicine, it most decidedly is not. While it is true that no one stands out as an individual hero because there are so many, still our generation has more than its share of intellectual giants. And it is so good to see that, giants or not, scientists are in direct communication with physicians. This could hardly have happened twenty years ago, for many reasons.

I mean specifically that, at the symposium, organic chemists such as Boissonnas of Basel, Elliott of London, and Nicolaides of Detroit were matching wits with pharmacologists such as Roche é Silva of Ribeirão . . . [Full Text of this Article]