The Greeks gave it the name asthma meaning panting. The cause is twitchy lung tube muscles with swelling of the tube lining and the production of a sticky mucus that strings out on Kleenex like tapioca.
Nobody knows why.
It is an episodic disease, acute attacks being interspersed with symptom-free periods. Under the microscope the lung is inflamed with two marker cells, the eosinophil and the mast cells. Both belong to the white blood. One has granules that stain pink named eosinophils after the Dawn Goddess Eos. There are groups of asthmatic patients.