Effect of Pentaquine in Patients with Hypertension

Following World War II, Freis returned to Boston to work with Wilkins at Massachusetts Memorial Hospital. Their work on pentaquine was an outgrowth of anti-malarial work conducted by others during the war, in which it was observed that some volunteers developed orthostatic hypotension. In this article, they report that the drug did lower blood pressure, yet it would not be an effective antihypertensive agent because it also produced severe toxic effects.