Asthma, which comes from a Greek word meaning to breathe hard or to pant, was identified and described as early as the 4th century BC by Hippocrates. He was able to recognize the spasmodic nature of the disorder and hypothesized that its onset was caused by moisture, occupation, and climate. The "Father of Medicine" suspected that asthma was analagous to epilepsy in that it had "its own nature" generated by external causes.