Excerpts from 'A breath of fresh air'. Hair Soup.

Two separate videos compiled onto a DVD. The sequence from 'A Breath of Fresh Air' starts with a few clips from the film of 'Swallows and Amazons'; Dr Roger Altounyan as a child knew Sir Arthur Ransome and he became the inspiration for a character in the book. Dr Altounyan then goes onto talk about his own experience of asthma and how he experimented on himself and discovered a breakthrough treatment for asthma. He is filmed sitting on one of the Egyptian sphinxes which are located by Cleopatra's Needle on the Thames in London. He developed sodium cromoglycate and also a means to dispense the medicine safely by creating a spin inhaler (he talks about his war service as a pilot being instrumental in this discovery). As a result of this new medicine, the Asthma Society was set up to enable people to discuss their experiences and treatment. The sequence includes the end credits to the video. The second video is entitled 'Science Fiction' and is presented by Tom Baker; David Suchet plays Altounyan in a drama written by Gillian Freeman. We find out that he was also dyslexic. His daughter, Barbara, appears in the film. The film recreates his experiments on himself - he collects the hair of the laboratory guinea pigs to induce an asthma attack. His research centred on preventing attacks. He set up a clinic for asthma sufferers. As a result Intal was developed.