The increasing frequency with which asthma is mentioned as a growing problem in children is alarming, so too is dependence on drugs rather than finding a cure. Some people may remember Dr Alexander James, who was remarkably successful in treating asthmatics.

Dr James was born in Russia in 1882, graduated with honours in medicine from Moscow University in 1910 and joined the medical corps of the Cuban Cossack Army in WW1. After the war he was sent to Manchuria as a specialist physician. He moved to North China after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1934, and migrated to Australia in 1940.

Aged 61, he began to study medicine again in a foreign language (English) and graduated from the University of Sydney in 1943. He became well known for his unorthodox vibrator and drug-free treatment of asthma.

Even though the then health minister approved funds for an asthma clinic at Wollongong Hospital in 1971 using the James Method, it was not to be. The medical establishment rejected this as Dr James' results had not been collated and scientifically published. Dr James' daughter continued using his treatment.

There is now less antipathy against alternative medical techniques, so perhaps it is time for both conventional and alternative medical practitioners to look to drug-free therapies for respiratory complaints. There appears to be no-one in Wollongong using the James Method, nor the more recent Buteyko Method. Perhaps it's time there was."

P. Ferguson, Woonona