Asthma: The Biography (Biographies of Diseases)

262 Pages·2009·1.62 MB·English

by  Mark Jackson

asthma
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asthma
The Biography
R
Mark Jackson
1
3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp
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© Mark Jackson 2009
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First published 2009
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jackson, Mark, 1959–
Asthma : the biography / Mark Jackson.
p. ; cm.—(Biographies of disease)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-923795-1 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Asthma—History. I. Title. II. Series: Biographies of disease (Oxford, England)
[DNLM: 1. Asthma—history. WF 11.1 J13a2009]
RC591.J3152009
616.2'38—dc22 2009026412
Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
ISBN 978–0–19–923795–1
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For Ciara, Riordan, and Conall
L’amour c’est l’espace et le temps rendus sensibles au cœur.
Marcel Proust, La Prisonnière
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acknowledgements
Unlike asthma, this book has a relatively straightforward history.
Approximately two years ago, Bill and Helen Bynum asked me
to contribute a volume on asthma to a new edited series entitled
‘Biographies of Disease’, to be published by Oxford University
Press. Since it seemed an excellent idea, I agreed, and the book
was born. I am deeply grateful to Bill and Helen for their con-
structive, and astonishingly swift and generous, advice and sup-
port throughout the process of preparing the manuscript. I am
also indebted to Latha Menon from Oxford University Press for
her careful coordination and management of the project.
The research on which the book is based was funded by the
Wellcome Trust, and I am grateful both for the Trust’s fi nancial
support and for the advice and friendship of key fi gures within
the Trust, particularly Mark Walport, Clare Matterson, Tony
Woods, and Liz Shaw. Since the chronological and geographi-
cal range of the subject extended well beyond my usual terms
of historical reference, I am afraid that I relied on the generosity
of many colleagues, who shared their work, time, and ideas in
order to facilitate my access to the previously hidden depths of
ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, histories of medi-
cine. In particular, I would like to thank Guy Attewell, Sanjoy
Bhattacharya, Siam Bhayro, Roberta Bivins, Jeremy Black,
Maarten Bode, Tse Wen Chang, Philip van der Eijk, Alison Finch,
Ali Haggett, Rhodri Hayward, Harry Hendrick, Carla Keirns, Ian
Gregg, Tak Lee, Vivienne Lo, Gregg Mitman, Glen Needham,
vii
acknowledgements
Carol Parry, David van Sickle, Matthew Smith, Akihito Suzuki,
and John Wilkins. I am also grateful to staff in the inter-library
loan section of the University of Exeter Library for obtaining
copies of otherwise inaccessible articles and books, and to
Asthma UK for allowing me access to the early records of the
Asthma Research Council.
I am grateful to the following sources for the illustrations
and permission to reproduce them: Figure 1: http://c ommons/
wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Marcel_Proust_1900.jpg;
Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, and 10 are reproduced courtesy of the
Wellcome Library, London; Figure 6 is from Clyde Henderson
Thompson, ‘Marin Marais, 1656–1728’ (Ph.D. thesis, University
of Michigan, 1957); Figures 9 and 11 are reproduced courtesy of
the Advertising Archives, London; Figure 12 is provided by the
Centre for the Study of Cartoons and Caricature, Templeman
Library, University of Kent, copyright Mirrorpix, 1958, repro-
duced by permission of Mirrorpix; Figures 13 and 15 are Crown
copyright, reproduced from the Lung and Asthma Information
Agency Factsheets 97/3 and 2001/1, http://www.sghms.ac.uk/
depts/laia/laia.htm; Figure 14 is a scanning electron micrograph
of an American house dust mite reproduced by kind permis-
sion of Glen Needham, Acarology Laboratory, the Ohio State
University, Columbus, Ohio. I have made every effort to contact
all copyright holders. If proper acknowledgement has not been
made, I ask the copyright holders to contact the publishers.
Of course, my heart belongs to Siobhán, who breathed fresh
life into me many years ago and who will always be the fulcrum
of my world. The book is dedicated, however, to our three chil-
dren, Ciara, Riordan, and Conall, who have so beautifully fi lled
our space and time.
viii
contents
List of Illustrations xi
Prologue 1
i Classical Asthma 10
ii Asthma Redefi ned 47
iii Asthma, Allergy, and the Mind 100
iv Asthma in the Modern World 152
Epilogue 199
Glossary 205
Notes 209
Further Reading 235
Index 241
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