Carla Keirns will present a paper, "Mountain Retreats, Asthma Germs & Patent Medicines: Episodes in the History of Asthma" at an evening seminar of the Francis C. Wood Institute for the History of Medicine of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Asthma has been recognized since ancient times, studied with the new technology of each generation, and treated with whatever was available. This talk will illustrate some of the advances in diagnosis and treatment of chronic shortness of breath and the enduring clinical dilemmas of a disease with multiple confusing causes and no cure (yet).

Ms. Keirns is an MD-PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania, completing a doctoral dissertation on the history of asthma in the United States. She served as Visiting Curator to the National Library of Medicine's Breath of Life exhibition, 1999-2001, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/breath/breathhome.html

The seminar, free and open to all, will be held at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (19 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia PA 19103) from 5:30 to 7:30 PM on Tuesday, December 3, 2002.