Ancient cultures all over the world used the pulse as a diagnostic tool. And eventually, we figured out how to measure blood pressure, and hypertension came to be viewed as a disease.

Research:

• Booth, Jeremy. “A Short History of Blood Pressure Measurement.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. Vol. 70. Nov. 1977. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/003591577707001112
• Elias, Merrill F. and Amanda L. Goodell. “Setting the record straight for two heroes in hypertension: John J. Hay and Paul Dudley White.” Journal of Clinical Hypertension. 9/21/2019. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8030549/#jch13650-bib-0004
• Greene, Jeremy A. “Releasing the Flood Waters: Diruil and the Reshaping of Hypertension.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 79, No. 4, Winter 2005. https://doi.org/10.1353/bhm.2005.0153
• Harold, John Gordon. “Harold on History | Historical Perspectives on Hypertension.” American College of Cardiology. 11/20/2017. https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/articles/2017/11/14/14/42/harold-on-history-historical-perspectives-on-hypertension
• Hay, John. “The Significance of a Raised Blood Pressure.” British Medical Journal. 7/11/1931.
• Johnson, Richard J. et al. “The discovery of hypertension: evolving views on the role of the kidneys, and current hot topics.” Renal Physiology. 1/2/2015. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajprenal.00503.2014
• Kotchen, Theodore A. “Historical Trends and Milestones in Hypertension Research: A Model of the Process of Translational Research.” Hypertension. Vol. 58, 2011.  https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.111.177766
• Labos, Christopher. “The Current Hypertension Controversy: There is None..” McGill. 2/8/2018. https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/general-science/current-hypertension-controversy-there-none
• Lüscher, Thomas F. “High blood pressure: new frontiers of an old risk factor.” European Heart Journal (2017) 38, 2791–2794. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehx544
• Moser, Marvin. “Historical Perspectives on the Management of Hypertension.” Journal of Clinical Hypertension. 5/22/2007. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1524-6175.2006.05836.x
• Postel-Vinay, Nicolas, editor. “A Century of Arterial Hypertension 1896-1996.” Wiley. 1996.
• Saklayen, Mohammad G. and Neeraj V. Deshpande. “Timeline of History of Hypertension Treatment.” Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine. 2/23/2016. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4763852/