Asthma

Asthma is a respiratory disease in which spasm and constriction of the bronchial passages and swelling of their mucous lining cause obstruction of breathing, often due to allergy, particularly to animal fur or feathers, dust, molds, and pollen.

King William III suffered from an irritating asthmatic cough. The English monarch’s asthma was badly  affected by the dank London river air so he moved to Hampton Court not long after his accession.

Figure A (below) shows the location of the lungs and airways in the body. Figure B shows a cross-section of a normal airway. Figure C shows a cross-section of an airway during asthma symptoms. 

Charles Dickens suffered from asthma. He found relief from his "chest troubles" only with opium, a popular asthma remedy of his day. Mr. Omer, one of the asthmatic characters in his autobiographical novel, David Copperfield, reflected Dickens's own suffering.

President Teddy Roosevelt was given strong coffee and puffs of cigar as a child to 'help' with his asthma.

President Coolidge suffered from asthma and because he mistrusted physicians, he treated himself with newly developed medicines and breathed chlorine released into the air of a closed room in vain attempts to ease his condition.

As a sickly infant, Leonard Bernstein sometimes turned blue from asthma. He became a prodigious pianist, conductor, composer, and lecturer, although he continued to suffer from asthma throughout his life. Audiences often heard him wheezing above the orchestra.

The actor Martin Freeman, star of Sherlock and The Hobbit, had asthma as a child and would sometimes faint when singing and dancing for his family. They initially believed it was part of his act.

Paula Radcliffe, who for a long time was the women's world record holder for fastest marathon, is an asthmatic.

A British woman with asthma once coughed so violently that one of her lungs slipped out of her chest between two of her ribs.

World-wide 180,000 people die of asthma every year.

Asthma affects one in fifteen children under the age of eighteen.

Children who grow up in Amish communities have much lower rates of asthma, potentially due to their exposure to dairy farms at an early age.

Regular coffee drinkers have about one-third less asthma symptoms than those non-coffee drinkers.

In Imogiri, Indonesia, eating fruit bat meat is thought to cure asthma.

1-year-old Mishka, became the first sea-otter to be diagnosed with asthma in 2015. The Seattle aquarium resident was taught to use an inhaler originally designed for cats.