XI, B, 3 Concepcion and Bulatao: Blood Pressure of Filipinos 143 



that we have obtained practically the same systolic pressure as 

 did Chamberlain on Filipinos. However, we should expect a 

 higher average systolic pressure because the average age of our 

 cases is slightly higher than those of Chamberlain, and because 

 we have used the graphic Erlanger method which is generally 

 known to give higher readings than does the palpatory method 

 (Erlanger gives 1 to 10 millimeters higher). That we did not 

 obtain this result may be explained by the fact that, whereas 

 Chamberlain's cases were "constantly engaged in vigorous out- 

 of-door work, with no special effort taken to protect them 

 from the sunlight," a majority of our male cases (about 64 per 

 cent) had been doing nothing for from one to five days previous 

 to the determinations. 



The systolic pressures of the Filipinos are very much lower 

 than those of the Americans living in temperate climates ( Woley, 

 Table II) , but the same as those of the Americans living in the 

 tropics (Chamberlain) whose ages range between 18 and 50, 

 the average being 26.6 years. These findings suggest that in 

 the tropics systolic pressures are very much lower than in 

 temperate climates. 



Bing,(i2) after an examination of 298 cases, concludes that 

 "the normal systolic blood pressure seems to be 100 to 130 milli- 

 meters mercury but seldom with this range above 60 years of 

 age." Earlier determinations of systolic pressure on man were 

 very much exaggerated because narrow cuffs were used. 



Goodman (15) includes under hypertension all cases with 

 a systolic pressure above 150 millimeters of mercury and a 

 diastolic pressure above 90 millimeters of mercury. 



We have been unable to find data of diastolic pressure for 

 man taken with the Erlanger sphygmomanometer, except a 

 series of determinations by Erlanger upon himself in which he 

 obtained an average of 80.5 millimeters of mercury using a 13- 

 centimeter cuff. Most of the limited data given for diastolic 

 pressure are read by the auscultatory and the oscillatory 

 methods. 



However, we do not intend to go into these methods in detail. 

 It suffices to mention that there are great differences between 

 data given by different persons. Weysse and Lutz,(8) using the 

 auscultatory method in a series of ten students, obtained an 

 average of 85 millimeters. With a similar method on a series of 

 young adults McWilliam and Melvin(l3) gave 65 millimeters 

 of mercury; Bachmann,(l4) using Fachon's sphygmomanome- 



