Salter aimed to prove asthma was nervous

Sticking to Dr. Henry Hyde Salter's view "On Asthma," he made a gallant effort in his book to prove that asthma was all in your head. In fact, his theories were so powerful that doctors as late as the 1980s still studies asthma as a psychosomatic disorder.

Salter offered the following examples as proof asthma was started in the brain:

1. Many patients feel fine as soon as they enter the doctor's office
2. Mental emotion can bring on a paroxysm of asthma
3. Mental emotion can resolve a paroxysm of asthma
4. Remedies that relax the nervous system resolve asthma, such as tobacco, antispasmodics, sedatives, and nervous depressants. Examples include tobacco, alcohol, morphine, and especially chloroform.

Reference: 

1. Salter, Henry Hyde, "On Asthma: It's Pathology and Treatment," 1868, London