The reasons for it are known if you know the reasons for large breathing, by contrast. Breathing sometimes becomes small due to pain, when pain prevents the respiratory organs from moving, and sometimes breathing becomes small due to tightness. When shortness of breath is combined with infrequency, this indicates the dying of nature, and if shortness of breath is at the same time frequent, this is a sign of pain in the respiratory organs and adjacent places, such as, say, in the stomach and other organs, for example, from ulcers or tumors.
Signs. Signs of the causes of small breathing, opposite to the causes of large breathing, are recognized by contrast. If the smallness of breathing is due to pain, and not from oppression, this is indicated by the presence of pain and the fact that if the person suffering from pain is able to endure and endure it, he can make his breathing larger. At the same time, among the breaths there are sometimes deep breaths, which are required by necessity, and one has to endure pain or necessity makes one forget about the pain. And short breathing due to tightness in everything is the opposite of this.