DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA FOR ASTHMA
All Asthmatic patients attended by myself present a history of long standing Asthma conditions with Bronchitis, and have already been under treatment by their family doctors and/or Asthma specialists with bronchodilatory drug therapy for these same conditions. Frequently, patients are referred to me by local and other doctors, and are such obvious and indisputable cases of Asthma that further clinical investigation or additional diagnosis by myself, is unnecessary.
I have never been presented with one fresh, undiagnosed case of Asthma, and the following typical symptoms are evident and pronounced – defective breathing (through the mouth), inadequate or non-existent chest expansion, poor general health sometimes to a degree of emaciation, frequently nasopharingitis, and paroxysmal dyspnoe etc. as main diagnostic symptoms.
My diagnostic approach to Asthma is based on my already mentioned definition of Asthma as, very simply, a condition of the lungs, deprived of room for expansion by the chest cage which has become partly or completely immobilized through shallow, defective breathing. This condition is always accompanied by:-
• Bronchitis, and the symptoms and signs of Bronchitis in differing degree according to the severity and chronicity of this Bronchitis.
• Defective breathing, usually through the mouth, with difficulty in breathing through the nose.
• Limited use of the chest cage, which, to varying degrees, is restricted in expansion as a consequence of defective breathing.
• Difficulty in breathing as a result of the lungs, congested and affected by Bronchitis being constricted and compressed by external pressure from the chest cage, which, because of the inadequate functioning of the breathing system due to insufficient supply of oxygen and deficiency of its by-product CO as the only stimulant activating the breathing center, has become partly or completely immobilized and “cemented”.
Unfortunately, it is not unusual for medical practitioners adhering to the orthodox concept of Asthma as an “incurable mystery” due to various Asthmogenic factors such as allergies etc. consider any sign of wheezing, cough, of the inevitable, frequently occurring chest infections in the Asthmatic as Asthma symptoms and involve the patient in unnecessary and harmful anti-Asthmatic, bronchodilatory drug therapy.
Dr. Alexander James, M.D. 1971