Editor,—Professor Silverman and Dr Wilson propose to use the diagnosis ‘asthma’ in children only when it is accompanied by a description of qualifying features such as the pattern and severity of the disease and possible causative or aggravating factors.1 As much as their suggestion deserves endorsement, both from a clinical and a scientific point of view, history has taught that getting physicians to accept such an approach may be very difficult, or even impossible.

In 1961, Professor Orie in Groningen considered that it is often very difficult …