[The beginnings, development and decline of a technique: controlled deep arterial hypotension].

Everything started with hypovolemic hypotension (bleeding). But that was the stone age. Later, postural and drug induced normovolemic methods were used. The golden age of deliberate hypotension spanned the period from 1948 to 1980, culminating in 1975. The benefit/risk ratio was first positive, then variable and turned out to be questionable with the advent of deep hypotension, a challenge to brain hemodynamics. Progress in hemostasis surgical practices defeated deliberate hypotension. Today it is only applied in exceptional cases.