THE 1960s
On the Trail of a Killer
![Drs. Page, Gifford and Dustan looking at paperwork on a table](https://magazine.clevelandclinic.org/hs-fs/hubfs/CC%20Magazine/Centennial/1960s/On%20the%20Trail%20of%20a%20Killer/Centennial-TrialKiller-Wide.jpg?width=1030&height=800&name=Centennial-TrialKiller-Wide.jpg)
Photo: Cleveland Clinic Archives
Hypertension used to be a death sentence, but Cleveland Clinic researchers helped to make it a treatable disease. Irvine Page, MD (left), proposed a “mosaic theory” that linked hypertension to multiple factors. Raymond Gifford, MD (center), demonstrated the lifesaving potential of antihypertensive drugs. Harriet Dustan, MD (right), was at the forefront of establishing a correlation between dietary sodium and the disease.