To respect member's privacy and keep things awesome, most of Litsy is hidden from Google. We let humans see and share pages, but not machines. Find out more.
The story of asthma stretches from antiquity to the present day, and perceptions of the disease have shifted with time. Mark Jackson describes not only the growing medical understanding of asthma, but shifting cultural views, from artisans' disease to Proust's elegant suffering. Asthma is part of the series, Biographies of Diseases.
The original vacuum cleaner was invented by James Spangler, an asthmatic janitor who thought it would help his symptoms. He gave one to his cousin Susan Hoover, and the rest is history.