800 B.C. Asthma was sacred disease

Homer (about 850 B.C.)

I have written a few posts about how asthma has benefited my life.  After doing so I was mocked by some who read these posts who said, "How can you benefit from having a disease?"

Yet from my studies on the history of asthma and it's origins, I have learned that it's quite possible that having this condition may have been considered a divine intervention by the gods.

So it's believed the term asthma comes from the Greek word Aezean which means to exhale through an open mouth.  Asthma is also believed to come from the Greek word panos, which means to pant.

Hence, you have your two terms for the disease.  Eventually panos was phased out, and the term asthma evolved to our modern definition. 

The terms asthma and Panos were used to describe panting since antiquity, yet historians agree that Homer was the first to use the word asthma in writing, and therefore is given credit for being the first to use the word.

(You can read about the origin of the term asthma in this post which will be published Sept. 18, 2012)

Yet Homer didn't use the term asthma to describe a medical condition.  Instead, he used the word asthma as in being winded as from fighting in a battle, and perhaps the Greeks thought of "asthma" as the result of heroic actions.  However, I'm merely speculating here.

Asthma was first used as a medical term nearly 400 years later by the writers of the Corpus Hippocraticus. There is no evidence asthma was considered a specific disease by Hippocrates, as most evidence suggests asthma was basically a "symptom" of gasping or panting.  Asthma, hence, was an umbrella term for any condition that caused these symptoms, and this is how the term was used through the 17th century.

An interesting thing to note about the ancient description of asthma, particularly as defined by Hippocrates, is that it was a paraxysmal disease.  This means that it presented with sudden, violent outburst, followed by short or long periods of time where it showed no symptoms at all.

Asthma was also considered more severe than simple dyspnea (short of breath).  Asthma's severity was often compared with an epileptic convulsion or ceizure, and, once again, it was considered a divine visitation.

It's true, at least according to Rober L. Shook in his book, ""Miracle Medicines: Seven Lifesaving Drugs and who created them." He writes that the Greeks believed panos, or asthma, was a sacred disease "that signified a visit from the gods."

Shook explains that those suffering from it were treated with a great deal of respect because it was considered to be an honor to have it. Imagine that:  an honor to have asthma.  This is interesting, because I described how I believed asthma to be a "divine intervention" into my life in my post "The Seven Benefits of Asthma."

However, to put this "divine intervention" into perspective, it was by the Ancient Greeks that most sickness and even death were the result of divine intervention.  When you became ill, or when it was time for you to die, this was due to the wishes of one or more of the gods.

Click here for more asthma history.