By: Matthias Girke
Original title: Erkrankungen der Atmungsorganisation. Asthma bronchiale. Der Merkurstab 1997; 50: 281-289.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14271/DMS-17131-DE
English by A. R. Meuss, FIL, MTA.
This translation is published with the kind permission of the journal Der Merkurstab.

JAM Vol. 14(4), Winter 1997

Summary, with additions, of a lecture given at the Medical Congress in Berlin on 15 May 1997.

Within the spectrum of chronic pulmonary diseases, some considerable advances have been made recently in understanding pathogenic relationships and developing treatment programs on the basis of this.(7) This has made it possible to treat some conditions using differentiated progressive strategies, some of them relating to specific stages. The danger is that one then easily loses sight of the inner constitution in mind and soul, and the approach becomes less holistic, falling victim to a reductionist image of the human being. A program using anti-inflammatory agents to treat asthma thus focuses on the inflammatory pathogenesis which has been considered in some depth recently (treatment aiming at suppression) and does not take account of the individual and soul reality of the person. Efficacy may be beyond doubt, but it is equally apparent that we need to see and treat the disease in more comprehensive terms. The different diseases of the lung clearly show relationship to the soul reality of human beings. Evident examples are the connection between bronchial hyperreactivity and the emotional coloring of inner soul responses. Circadian rhythms may be found in the different degrees of bronchial inflammatory activity and obstructive pulmonary diseases,(30) pointing to connections with waking and sleeping, in short, central qualities of consciousness in the inner life. A comparable situation is the dependence of arterial oxygen saturation on the level of consciousness (waking, non-REM sleep, REM sleep(30)). The close connection between respiration as a "vital function"(16) and its function of revealing human qualities of soul and spirit in sound and speech points to the emphatic need to use the same multidimensionality in seeking to understand the diseases of the respiratory organization. 

To begin with, this brief statement of aims will clearly present more questions than potential solutions, and it is hoped readers will take what follows in this spirit. An image will be sought for the respiratory organization that also considers the quality of the inner soul world. The method used will not differ from that customary in conventional science, but the range of observation will be extended to include the above-mentioned areas. 

Citation: Girke, M. (1997). Diseases of the Respiratory Organization: Asthma (A. R. Meuss, Trans.). Journal of Anthroposophic Medicine, 14(4), 1–15.