Effect of clotting and of addition of histamine on its distribution in blood

Treadmill exercise-induced stress causes a rise of blood histamine in normotensive but not in primary hypertensive humans

We have previously shown an interaction between noradrenergic and histamine-containing neurons in the rat vas deferens. As a generalized phenomenon, this interaction is involved in a novel peripheral reflex that, in an inhibitory way, modulates sympathetic activity and arterial pressure. Consistent with this, an activation of postganglionic sympathetic neurons causes a rise in rat blood histamine. In the present study, we showed that enhanced sympathetic activity due to treadmill exercise in normotensive humans, is accompanied by a rise in blood histamine, suggesting the presence of a similar neuronal interaction in humans. In contrast, the rise in blood histamine does not occur in primary hypertensive humans during the same degree of physical exercise, suggesting that this interaction is faulty in such hypertensives and could be involved in the pathophysiology of the disease.

Gleb Anrep, 1891-1955

Gleb (Vassilievitch von) Anrep was descended from a famous Westphalian family with a proud history of high military distinction which can be traced back to the tenth century. Field Marshal von Anrep was leader of the Livonian Order of Knights who built an outpost of Christianity on the shores of the Baltic. General von Anrep came to St Petersburg at the invitation of Peter the Great and founded the Russian branch of the family in the eighteenth century. Professor Vassili (Basil) von Anrep (1854-1925) was the first member of this family to prefer science to arms. He was born in St Petersburg and studied law in the university there for a year, but he soon tired of academic legal arguments and entered the Medical Academy where he was a brilliant student. He spent two years studying pharmacology in Leipzig, where he described the local anaesthetic action of cocaine and recommended its use in medicine four years before its introduction by Roller. He returned to Russia to be professor of pharmacology, first in Kharkov and then in the Medical Academy in St Petersburg. At the invitation of Prince Oldenburgski he founded the Institute of Experimental Medicine and directed it for several years. At the command of the Emperor he then founded a medical institute for women doctors, which was needed because Moslem women refused to be treated by men. His public duties interfered with his researches and eventually he devoted himself entirely to the reform of education. He held high administrative posts in connexion not only with medicine but also with education in general, and nearly succeeded in introducing compulsory education for all Russians. In the first world war he was at the head of the Russian Red Cross. At the outbreak of the revolution he was thrown into prison, but was released after six months and since the family had come from the Baltic he managed to obtain a Latvian passport. He arrived in London in 1919, stayed with his younger son Gleb for a few years and then left for Paris, where he died in 1925.