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

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 . . .