ON ASTHMA: ITS PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT. BY J. B. BERKART, M.D., MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON; ASSISTANT PHYSICIAN TO THE LONDON: J. & A. CHURCHILL, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1878. T. RICHARDS, PRINTER, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET. BOSTON MEDICAL LIBRARY IN THE FRANCIS A. COUNTWAY ΤΟ J. RUSSELL REYNOLDS, M.D., FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY; PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON; PHYSICIAN TO UNIVERSITY COLLEGE HOSPITAL ; PHYSICIAN TO THE QUEEN'S HOUSEHOLD; ETC. THIS IS INSCRIBED IN ADMIRATION OF HIS RESEARCHES INTO THE NATURE OF OBSCURE AFFECTIONS OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, AND NOT THE LESS IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF MANY OBLIGATIONS, PREFACE. THE intractability of asthma, which, some years ago, was thrust upon my notice on several occasions, induced me to make that disease the subject of a special study. I was the more tempted to do so by the conviction that there could be no prospect of satisfactorily coping with the complaint so long as, on the one hand, the "double capriciousness" was regarded as an essential element of its pathology; while, on the other, for the exhibition of remedies of the most opposite effects, there was no other indication but that they had been found useful in isolated instances. In the pursuit of that inquiry, little perspicacity was needed to discover that the prevailing obscurity on the nature and treatment of asthma, primarily and mainly, arose from the exclusive attention bestowed upon the dyspnoeal paroxysms; whereas their constant antecedents and sequelæ, which form the life-history, as it were, of the disease, were either neglected or erroneously interpreted. It is readily intelligible, that a dyspnoea, which, apparently independent of organic lesions, suddenly arises and as suddenly subsides, cannot but be the subject of much speculation. A close examination, however, of all the facts connected with asthma, enabled me to conclude that this was merely one link in a chain of morbid processes, that com |