XI, B, 3 Concepcion and Bulatao: Blood Pressure of Filipinos 141 



per cent, were convicts newly admitted to Bilibid Prison; they 

 were quarantined for five days and had no work to do for from 

 one to five days before their blood-pressure readings were taken ; 

 whereas all the female convicts were engaged in embroidery 

 work and most of the female nurses were just from the wards 

 when their blood pressures were determined; (&) we have 

 found it very much harder to eliminate the psychic factor with 

 the females than with the males. Although we have in almost 

 all cases discarded the first readings in nervous, excited females, 

 yet we feel we have not been able to eliminate this psychic 

 factor entirely. 



Musgrave and Sison(i) in a series of nineteen females, average 

 age not stated, obtained an average systolic pressure of 113 milli- 

 meters of mercury, which is 3 millimeters lower than our finding. 

 We can ascribe this difference from our results to the greater 

 number of cases which we have observed, not to mention the 

 differences in age and the conditions to which the subjects were 

 subjected during examination. 



An analysis of the first 372 cases shows that in 14.4 per cent 

 the systolic pressure is below 100 millimeters of mercury, in 

 9.2 per cent it is above 140 millimeters, thus leaving 76.4 per 

 cent with a systolic pressure ranging from 100 to 140 milli- 

 meters of mercury. If we take all those cases within 10 milli- 

 meters of the average systolic pressure for a given age, we shall 

 notice how very variable the systolic pressure is for that age. 

 Thus, in those cases whose ages range from 15 to 20 years, only 

 55.4 per cent show a systolic pressure within 10 millimeters of 

 mercury of the average obtained for that age. If we make 

 the same calculation with the diastolic pressure, we shall find 

 similar variations, but to a much less extent, as shown in Table 

 III. 



Table III. — Cases with blood pressure within 10 per cent of the average 

 pressure for the given age group. 



Age. 



Cases within 10 

 millimeters mer- 

 cury of the average. 



Systolic 

 pressure. 



Diastolic 

 pressure. 



15 to 20 — 



Years. 



Per cent. 

 55.4 

 64.0 

 37.7 

 44.4 

 64.4 



Per cent. 

 78.4 

 74.3 

 57.4 

 68.4 

 68.2 



21 to 30 



31 to 40 - 



41 to 60 — 



51 to 60 - 





142020 3 









