Sir Henry Salter, a Victorian doctor, recommended strong black coffee. Theophylline was isolated from cocoa in the 1860s and aminophylline was first produced in 1908. With Queen Victoria we are into the era of modern medicines. In 1869 atropine, derived from the plant deadly nightshade, was introduced. Adrenaline was introduced in 1900 - and first administered by inhaler at Guys Hospital in 1929.
Drugs work on parts of the body by attaching to special 'docking stations' on the surface of cells.
These docking stations are called receptors. Progress in designing medicines for asthma has come from a better understanding of these receptor sites. Each receptor is responsible for different effects. Adrenaline stimulates all three kinds of receptor and has lots of side effects. Isoprenaline, the first refinement, stimulated only the beta receptors but still caused some disturbing side effects.