1871: Walshe creates new asthma theory

Dr. Walshe described paralysis of the bronchial
musculature, which was essentially emphysema.
 Other physicians also observed this, one such
physician being Dr Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle
(1809-1885).  Dr. Orville Brown said that
Henle believed  "imperfect expiration
and stenotic sounds as evidence of a paralysis
of bronchial muscles."  (2, page 33)

After Henry Hyde Salter wrote his famous asthma book "Asthma: It's Pathology and Treatment," the medical community was all but convinced as to the validity of the nervous and spasmotic theories of asthma. So when Dr. Walter Hayle Walsh came up with a third theory, he faced an uphill battle to convince the medical community, and he knew it.  

Dr. Walshe was well aware of the writings of Dr. Salter, and he supported the great asthma doctor's asthma theories.  Yet after studying the work of Rene Laennec and other physicians, he believed there was enough evidence to suggest that asthma was sometimes caused by paralysis of the bronchial musculature.  

In his book 1871 book, "A Practical Treaties on the Diseases of the Lungs," Walsh explained how he formed his theory. 

Laennec ascribed the peculiar air-distension of the lungs, found in persons asphyxiated by the mephitic gases of cesspools, to paralysis of the vagi nerves; Mr. Swan noticed similar distension in animals whose eighth pair had been divided in the neck (tide Nervous Apnosa). In both cases the contractile force of the bronchial muscles, concerned in expiration, is more or less completely annulled.  (1, pages 555)

Dr. Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle
(1809-1885) was another physician
who supported the idea of paralysis
of bronchial muscles. He believed
 imperfect expiration and stenotic sounds
were his proof.    (2, page 33)

Vagus is Latin for wandering.  Early Roman physicians must have been amazed how this long nerve wanders throughout the body, from the brain stem all the way down to the abdomen.  In between, it branches to various viscera, or organs, including the ears, heart, lungs, diaphragm, and stomach. For this reason they referred to it as the vagus nerve.

Today it's still referred to as the vagus nerve, although it's also known as the 10th cranial nerve, the pneumogastric nerve, nerve X, or the wandering nerve.  It's responsible for many of the involuntary functions of the body, including breathing.
This refresher in mind, let's allow Walshe to continue:

If then, as we have seen, there be motive to believe that true dynamic asthma depends, as a rule, on spasmodic action of the bronchial muscular apparatus, here are speculative reasons for presuming that paralysis of the apparatus (vagus nerve) may cause an exceptional variety of the affection. Clinically, too, we meet with examples of asthma in which the comparative facility of inspiration, and difficulty of expiration, coupled with the deficiency of the usual amount of dry rhonchi (wheeze), suggest of themselves the probable existence of a minus, rather than a plus, state of power in bronchial contractility. Possibly such cases are those habitually most benefited by strychnia and galvanism. (1, pages 555-556)

Of course, upon making this observation, Walshe was aware that Dr. Salter had already succeeded in convincing the medical profession of another asthma theory. He therefore knew it would be very difficult to change the mind of a dogmatic medical profession.  He said:

This view is, however, far from being unopposed. Dr. Salter, for instance, adopting the prevailing theory that the bronchial muscles "are not, because they can not be, muscles of respiration," refuses to admit a paralytic variety of asthma. There are many clinical facts, now taking rank as accepted truths, which were once said "not to be, because they could not be," on the assumption that the conventional physiology of the hour was true. It seems to be a law of nature, that, where circular fibres embrace a tube, they are designed to influence the movement of its contents; why should the bronchial muscles have been created on a different principle? Experientia Falax! Dr. Salter may urge. True; but experimenta fallaciora.  (1, page 556)

He is not saying that all cases of asthma are paralytic in nature, just some.  As Dr. Orville Brown reminds us in his 1917 book on asthma, Walshe "adhered... to the bronchiolar muscle spasm theory to explain most cases of the disease."  (2, page 33)

So he wasn't totally opposed to the conventional wisdom regarding asthma at the time.  (16, page 33) (20, pages 13-14) (25, page 11)

References:

1. Walshe, Walter Hyde," A Practical Treaties on the Diseases of the Lungs," 1871, 4th edition, London, Smith, Elder & Company
2. Brown, Orville Harry, "Asthma, presenting an exposition of nonpassive expiration theory," 1917, St. Louis, C.V. Mosby Company
3. Thorowgood, John C., "Asthma and Chronic Bronchitis: A New Edition of Notes on Asthma and Bronchial Asthma," 1894, London, Bailliere, Tyndall, & Cox, pages 13-14)
4. Thorowgood, John C., "Asthma and Chronic Bronchitis: A New Edition of Notes on Asthma and Bronchial Asthma," 1894, London, Bailliere, Tyndall, & Cox, page 11

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1848: Rudolf von Kolliker strengthens convulsive theory of asthma

Rudolf Albert von Kolliker (1817-1905) (5, page 489)

In the 18th century William Cullen believed muscle was a continuation of a nerve, and he used this as his proof that asthma was a nervous disorder.  In 1848, a Swiss histologist by the name of Rudolf Albert von
Kolliker proved Cullen's claim to be wrong.

Kolliker was born on July 6, 1817, in Zurich, Switzerland  He began his secondary education at the University of Zurich in 1836, and then the University of Bonn in 1838.  He later studied at the University of Berlin where he became a pupil of two great physicians by the names of Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle and Johannes Muller.  From these men he learned about the microscope and microscopic anatomy.  (1, page 422)(2, page 194)(3)(4)

Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle (1809-1885) was
one of Johannes Muller's pupils, one of his prosectors,
and later one of von Kolliker's professors.
 He became the greatest histologist of his time,
and one of the greatest anatomists of all time.
 (5, pages 483-486)(6)

He received his medical degree from Heidelberg in 1842, and became Henle's prosector in 1843 (that means that he prepared a dissection for demonstration). This set him up nicely to become professor of anatomy and physiology at Zurich in 1844.  In 1847 he became professor of anatomy and physiologyat Wuzburg, where he was offered an opportunity to specialize in microscopic anatomy, and where he spent the rest of his active life. (1, page 422)(2, page 194)(3)(4)

He was among the first physicians to study the microscopic structures of the body, and he proved that cells did not just form on their own, only by existing cells.  He also was the first to isolate and observe minute cells called smooth muscle cells (unstriated muscle cells), and advanced scientific knowledge of nerve cells, nerve fibers, and red blood cells. (1, page 422) (2, page 194)(3)(4)

Johannes Muller (1801-1858) was one
of the first physicians to use the microscope
to study the microscopic structures
of the body.  (5, pages 475-478)

Upon further inspection, he discovered that smooth muscle cells lined the bronchiolar air passages all the way down to bronchioles as small as 0.18 milimeters in diameter. (2, page 194)

By his study of such minute structures of the human body he became one of the fathers of histology, or the study of tissues.

His research helped strengthen the convulsive or spasmotic theory of asthma in that he confirmed both the studies of Franz Daniel Reisseissen, who proved muscular fibers wrap around the air passages, and J.B. Williams, who proved these fibers constrict when stimulated.

He resisted all offers to take him away from the "quiet academic life of the Bavarian town, where he died on the 2nd of November 1905. (4)

References:

1. Daintith, John, editor, "Biographical encyclopedia of scientists." 2009, 3rd edition, Florida, CRC Press
2. Geddings, W.H., author of the chapter on "Bronchial Asthma," in the book  "A System of Practical Medicine," edited by William Pepper and Louis Star,Volume 3, 1885, Philadelphia, Lea Brothers and Co.
3. "Rudolf Albert von Kolliker," britannica.com, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/321429/Rudolf-Albert-von-Kolliker, accessed 4/4/14
4. "Rudolf Albert von Kolliker," 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, http://www.studylight.org/enc/bri/view.cgi?n=28434&search=span, accessed 4/4/14
5. Garrison, Fielding Hudson, "An introduction to the history of medicine," 3rd edition, 1821, Philadelphia and London, W.B. Saunders Company
6. "Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle," britannica.com, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261245/Friedrich-Gustav-Jacob-Henle, accessed 4/4/14

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