Their breathing is rather small, because the abdominal barrier is compressed and expanding movements are difficult for it. Since their breathing is small, it is necessarily fast and frequent if their strength is sufficient, and only frequent if they are insufficient.
If a person washes himself with hot water, then his breathing becomes greater due to the need to extinguish the innate warmth and softness of the respiratory organ, and also accelerates and becomes more frequent due to the same need. But for someone who washes in a bathhouse with cold water, the situation is the other way around.
If the sleeper's strength is significant, then his breathing is large and rare for the reason mentioned in the chapter on the pulse. In this case, the compression is stronger and faster than the expansion, because the sleeper’s digestion occurs more intensely.
This kind of breathing, as you learned from what we explained to you earlier, is somewhat small and short. Sometimes it becomes redoubled, sometimes it becomes difficult, and sometimes it slows down if there is no burning in the heart and quickening of breathing, as you already know. Its smallness and shortness are greater than slowness, for the impulse to delay and small expansion is greater than the impulse to slow down, and the suffering from large expansion is stronger than the suffering from speed. If the heart is flaming and heated, then breathing inevitably accelerates, although this causes suffering.
When there is constriction in breathing, in most cases it is necessary to compensate for what occurs from the constriction by accelerating and increasing speed, no matter what the cause of the constriction; Therefore, the breathing in such patients is small, narrow and frequent. And the breathing of asthmatics is one of those things that will be explained in its place.
They sometimes try to expand the entire chest; in this case, there is fever and shortness of breath, but there is no increase in breathing and there are no reasons for the preservation of strength, because the person suffering from this illness becomes very weak, while in patients with pneumonia and asthma, strength is retained.
Such breathing is accompanied by a large expansion of the chest and is rapid and frequent due to the need to extinguish heat and the presence of matter in the depths. There is no shortness of breath in such patients.