Modern and traditional treatments for this disease are quite different at first sight. But after going into it a little bit deeper, you will find that actually they see eye to eye on many levels. Modern medicine achieves remarkable growth on researches of allergies, bronchial spasm, inflammation, and cell adhesion molecules. And Zhu Danxi advocated strengthening vital Qi as priority in chronic remission stage while purgating the pathogenic Qi in the attack stage. What's more, he also mapped out the therapeutic principles like symptomatic treatment in acute condition, radical treatment in chronic case, and treating both manifestation and root causes in between, which have something similar to classification and long term stewardship in modern medicine.

1. DISPELL PATHOGENIC WIND AND ANTIANAPHYLAXIS
Earlier modern medicine came up with the notion of immunoglobulin E (IgE) and underlined the importance of antianaphylactic treatment. Researches in west believe that specific allergy related Immunoglobulin E (IgE) would be produced in plasmocyte of respiratory tract’s mucosa after initially contacting allergens, which makes the body sensitised. Contacting antigen again would induce immediate allergic reaction and thus asthma. Honestly, there is no such a concept of allergy at all in Chinese herbal remedies but the associated one is wind pattern. Its sudden, paroxysmal and repetitive properties are coincided with mobility and changeableness in wind. Being the primary pathogen, wind comes from vicious Qi in nature and imbalance in body's zang-fu viscera, Qi blood, and Yin yang. Now the pharmacological studies show that wind-dispelling herbs improve cellular immune function, reduce body's stress response to allergens, fight off histamine, and resist anaphylaxis inflammation, etc.

2. REGULATE QI AND ATTENUATE AIRWAY HYPERRESPONSIVENESS
Modern medicine went through a few phases to understand this disease well, like inhalers, receptor (asthmatic attack induced by loss of balance between AMP/cGMP and PGF2α/PGE2), and then airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR). Airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) is such the major feature that attenuation is one of the vital cures. TCM alternative medicine holds the view that the attacks are mainly caused by jamming lung Qi, breach of duty of dispersing and descending lung Qi, and reversed flow of Qi upwardly.

3. TRANSFORM PHLEGM AND ELIMINATE CHRONIC AIRWAY ALLERGIC INFLAMMATION
In recent years people come to realize that chronic airway allergic inflammation is the basic pathology, which present with a variety of inflammatory cellular infiltrate especially eosnophils, thickening of lung airway walls, mucosal hyperemia and Edema, airway stenosis and spasm, epithelial cell injury and loss, and increasing capillary exudation and producing mucus secretion. Obviously the exudation, secretion, and castoff cells are the main sources of phlegm. So, modern medicine believes that anti-inflammatory therapy, glucocorticoids and inhalers, is the radical cure. In TCM, the corresponding herbs-for-asthma treatment rules are transforming phlegm, adopting different phlegm-clearing methods according to the specific properties.

4. REMOVE BLOOD STASIS AND ANTI-ADHESIVE MOLECULES
TCM believes that chronic diseases would transform to collaterals and result in blood stasis in the end, which is also one of important causes of asthma. In the west, the finding of cell adhesion molecules was once viewed as the fourth milestone for asthma cures following allergies, bronchial spasm, and inflammation theories. In addition, today's research shows that herbs for promoting blood circulation perform well on multiple tasks, such as to dissolve fibrin in sputum, improve microcirculatory diaturbance and inflammatory lesions, inhibit platelet adhesion and aggregation and synthesis of thromboxane A2, fight inflammation and allergies, stabilize the mast cell membrane, eliminate mucosa edema, repair epithelial injury, remodel airway, and clear oxygen free radicals, etc.

5. TONICS AND BODY IMMUNITY FUNCTION
Many TCM practitioners advocate strengthening and consolidating body resistance through tonifying lung, spleen and kidney. This is because this condition goes through a process from excess to deficiency, presenting a decline in lung function and weakness of immune system. The changes of lung Qi affect the wax and wane of defensive Qi, nutrient Qi, and primordial Qi. Lung is the host of Qi while kidney the root of Qi so that chronic asthma is bound to implicate kidney. Therefore, tonifying these three zangs is the priority in order to get rid of it from the root.