People who look apparently healthy suffer from asthma and bronchitis all of a sudden because of exposure to cold wind, rain, dietetic irregularities and mental strain.



Sometimes an attack of asthma becomes so acute that the patient cannot sleep or walk, nor even talk. This creates an alarming situation among his family members and relations. Asthma can be caused by afflictions of the lungs, the heart, liver and the kidneys. In spite of phenomenal progress in the medical sciences, the treatment of asthma has remained obscure except for some palliative symptomatic remedies powerful drugs have been discovered to dilate the bronchial tree and cause expectoration. But all their effects are temporary and the patient gets the attack regularly and repeatedly. Day by day the patient who, in the beginning, appears absolutely healthy becomes weak and emaciated. He loses his productive capacity and energy. With the progress of age, he develops bronchiectasis, a condition in which phlegm accumulates at the terminal point of the bronchial tree in the lungs.



In some patients, the alveoli get dilated and remain as such thereby interfering with the exchange of carbon-dioxide and oxygen in the capil¬laries of the lungs. In order to get relief, the dose of medicine is increased and ultimately it is the adverse effect of these medicines rather than the disease itself which lands the patients in a serious condition.

The word asthma is derived from the Greek word “aazein” which means sharp breath. The word first appeared in Homer’s lliad. It was first referred as a medical condition by Hippocrates who thought that the spasms associated with asthma were more likely to occur in metalworkers, tailors, and anglers. It was after six centuries later that Galen noted that asthma was caused by partial or complete bronchial obstruction. An influential medieval rabbi, physician, and philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote a treatise on asthma, describing its prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

It was in the seventeenth century that Bernardino Ramazzini noted a connection between asthma and organic dust. The use of bronchodilators started in 1901, but in 1960s the inflammatory component of asthma was recognized and the use of anti-inflammatory medications was started for asthma treatment.