Asthma, Allergies and Eucalyptus

I have a friend, who's 30 years old, and is now developing a really bad asthma. From what I can see he's allergic to cats, and he has been having at least once a day, breathing problems. He uses his inhaler 3-4 times a day. I used to have a very bad asthma myself when I was a child, but I was put into an intensive swimming treatment and herbal medicines, and I haven't had any symptoms for the past 18 years (I'm 30 years old now).
I remember that my mother used to give me special massages in my back, and at the same time that she boiled eucalyptus leafs. Do you recommend I do the same for him?
This weekend I'm going to help him clean his apartment, but unfortunately his roomate smokes and it doesn't help at all.
Please advise if you think this is a good idea, and I don't know if you might have an idea where I could find natural eucalyptus in Ottawa?

Everyone has an allergy load which is an amount of allergens/things that cause allergies that a person can tolerate before experiencing allergy symptoms. For some individuals, it takes a lot of exposure to various allergens before symptoms are experienced and for others it takes very little. A persons vitality, immune system, genetics, stress load, diet among other things, determine what their allergy load point is. Typically, when we are younger and in our primary as teenagers and young adults, our allergy load it higher thus meaning we can tolerate more allergens. This explains why children can have allergies and asthma and seem to grow out of it. Then, suddenly, when they are an adult and have a child or two, stressed with work, paying a high mortgage, etc. , the asthma then returns seemingly out of the blue. Or, for another example, why during certain seasons ones allergies are worse. The really unfortunate thing is that every time an allergy load is hit, the allergy load point tends to be lower the next time. The body has a memory.
I am assuming that the cat mentioned is living with him and is causing many of these attacks. Smoke is a well known cause for asthma as well. I think the first thing to do is to eliminate the "offending matter(s)" and yes, cleaning his apartment and helping to reduce the allergens present, is a good idea. Unless he acts now, some day, if not now, he's health is going to continue on a downward spiral until he will have no choice but to get rid of anything that causes his allergies. The only other thing he can do is focus really hard on building up his immune system so that it can tolerate these "offenders".
The techniques your mother used helped to strengthen you lungs and your immune system. Asthma is a condition whereby the airways are constricted. Eucalyptus is an excellent and well known airways dilator thus a specific for asthma symptoms. However, it would only be a band-aid and would only bring temporary relief until the immune system is strengthened. Eucalyptus is a plant native to Australia. However, you can purchase eucalyptus plants and dried leaves for steaming purposes from Richters for this purpose.
Echinacea is an excellent immune stimulant and is available for purchase as well.
For more information on building up a healthy immune system, please see:
www.richters.com/qa-search.cgi?search=asthma