Ipecac. This remedy is a close homoeopathic simile to asthma, especially to the spasmodic variety where the symptoms are great weight and anxiety about the chest ; sudden wheezing, dyspnoea, threatening suffocation, aggravated by motion ; the cough causes gagging and vomiting. The cough is constant, the chest seems full of phlegm, yet none is expectorated, and the extremities are covered with cold perspiration.
Lobelia is a remedy which one usually classifies with Ipecac. It has the great oppression of the chest and a weak sensation in the chest which seems to come from the epigastrium, where there is a feeling of a lump ; there is nausea, profuse salivation ; the attack is preceded by a prickling sensation through the whole system.
Arsenicum. As stated above, Arsenicum has some similarity to Ipecac, but the time of attacks is just after midnight. The patient has a great deal of anguish and restlessness ; he cannot lie down for fear of suffocation. There is anxiety and general sweat, and if the patient drowses off he is awakened with burning pain and soreness in the chest. It is especially the remedy if the disease be chronic and the dyspnoea habitual and dry and the patient aged.
Under Grindelia robusta the patient on falling asleep ceases to breathe and awakes with a start. Grindelia has been found clinically to benefit humid asthma and acute catarrhal asthmas, and Halbert states that 5 or 10 drops of the tincture every hour during the paroxysmal state will greatly palliate.
Viscum album is also clinically recommended. It has weakness of the respiratory muscles and stertorous breathing.