A collection of inhalers and asthma therapies

Poudre Escouflaire

This is a French anti-asthmatic combustible powder. It contained belladonna and stramonium as well as arsenic and other constituents. Two formulations were available, each with different proportions of the same ingredients. Marcel Proust, the French author, was a chronic sufferer from both hay fever and asthma. He had a special smoking room where he treated himself with a pharmacopoeia of “fumigations”. His cures included stramonium or Espic cigarettes, Legras or Escouflaire powders, ephinephrine, caffeine, carbolic acid fumigants, isolation, auto-suggestion, morphine and opium. For further reading seeAllergy: The History of a Modern Malady by Mark Jackson.

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