ISSHP, an association saving the lives of pregnant women and their babies (The International Society for the Study of Hypertensions in Pregnancy (ISSHP): Its history)

摘要

The International Society for the Study of Hypertension (ISSHP) requested your two former Presidents and former Secretary/Treasurers as well (translating into 16 years of unpaid but enjoyable labor) to write a history of the Society in time for the biannual ISSHP Congress in Sao Paulo in 2016 and its 40th Birthday. We accepted, with trepidation, especially as one of us (MDL) is now an octogenarian when memory can exaggerate, if it is there at all! Moreover, even when younger he was known to forget names, at times referring to his own wife as "what's her name?" (though their marriage as of 2016 is in its 58th year!). Additionally, and especially during the earliest years of ISSHP's development, some of the Society's records, including abstract books of Congresses seem to have gone astray. Most important, the discoveries and presentation of what counts, those important data that have in fact survived scrutiny, are most certainly better known to our members, especially those who choose to read this monograph than to your authors' "retired" minds. That is because nowadays virtually all who read "Pregnancy Hypertension" are committed to reversing the scourge of hypertensive disease in pregnant women and most of all, to unraveling the cause of preeclampsia and the means to prevent and/or cure it. The two of us now are at that age when one enjoys that peaceful laziness called "being emeritus"! Thus, we will focus on anecdotes that not only aim to amuse you but to show the enthusiasm, zeal, and hopefully that sense of humor that investigators must have, as our studies or experiments are often negative, and even when positive, it's like a candle that flickers. However, as of 2016 persistence is starting to pay off!