THE ANCIENT GREEK WORD
ASTHMA, meaning "gasping," was used by Greek
and Roman physicians to describe shortness of breath. In the
Greco-Roman tradition, treatment was tailor-made for the individual
patient and personalized according to his or her unique balance
of the four "humors": yellow bile, black bile, blood,
and phlegm. This humoral theory had a profound influence on the
development of Arabic and European medicine well into the eighteenth
century.