Many people have felt anxious, wondering if they might have asthma while lying awake at night from a persistent cough and a suffocating tightness in the chest. Tossing and turning to your own wheezing, waiting endlessly for morning to arrive is a distress only those who have lived through it truly know. Drawing on both Donguibogam and modern medical insights, let us explore the story of asthma, this uninvited nocturnal guest.
Donguibogam did not view this pain of breathing—namely cough and dyspnea—as merely an isolated issue of the lung. Rather, it viewed breathing as a shared responsibility within the household of the body, where the lung, kidney, and spleen each perform distinct roles.
First, the lung, our body's ventilation system, is responsible for inhaling clear qi from the outside and expelling turbid qi. When the lung is weakened by external wind-cold, wind-heat, or internal phlegm-fluid, coughing begins. If the lung cannot function properly, air stagnates just like a broken ventilation fan, triggering a cough.
Next, the kidney, which governs the deep-rooted power of respiration, performs the function of qi reception, drawing the air inhaled by the lung deep into the body and storing it. When kidney qi weakens, no matter how much the lung breathes, the air cannot reach deep inside and merely lingers shallowly. It is like pumping vigorously into a water bucket with a hole in the bottom; water simply cannot collect. This results in rapid, shallow breathing, producing symptoms characteristic of asthma. Many patients experience worsening asthma symptoms particularly at night, because yin qi strengthens during the night, making the kidney's qi reception function even more crucial.
Lastly, the spleen, the internal water manager, is responsible for digesting food and metabolizing moisture. When the spleen weakens, unnecessary dampness and phlegm-fluid accumulate in the body. If this phlegm-fluid ascends to the lung and obstructs the airway, breathing becomes harder and produces a wheezing sound, just like water pooling when a drain is blocked. Therefore, Donguibogam considered that when cough and shortness of breath appear together, all three zang-fu organs—the lung, kidney, and spleen—are likely diseased, and saw restoring the balance among these three organs as the core of treatment.
