Although asthma has been recognised for thousands of years, the disorder was widely misunderstood until the 20th century.¹ The first widely accepted disease definition was released only 30 years ago.² Although this definition continues to be cited, most clinicians do not actually measure airway inflammation and hyper-responsiveness when they examine a patient with asthma. Yet most patients, clinicians, and researchers claim to recognise “asthma” when they see it—and surveillance programmes continue to document enormous morbidity and costs worldwide.

中文翻译：

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关于哮喘的转变思维

尽管人们已经认识到哮喘已有数千年的历史，但直到20世纪，人们才普遍误解了这种疾病。¹第一个被广泛接受的疾病定义仅在30年前发布。²尽管继续引用该定义，但大多数临床医生在检查哮喘患者时实际上并未测量气道炎症和反应过度。然而，大多数患者，临床医生和研究人员声称，他们在看到“哮喘”后便会认出它来-并且监测计划仍在全球范围内记录着巨大的发病率和成本。