FRESH AIR 317 



Ozone is a form of oxygen in which three, instead of the nsual two, 

 atoms are united in the molecule. It is present in minute quantity in 

 the atmosphere, usually not of cities, but of the country and the sea. 

 Its powerful oxidizing properties and its intemperate advocacy by en- 

 thusiastic but unscientific persons have caused it to be hailed popularly 

 as highly beneficial to the human body, not only in ordinary respiration, 

 but in the purification of the air of living rooms, the destruction of bac- 

 teria and other organic matters, and the cure of disease. On crisp cool 

 mornings we are fain to enlarge our chests as we step into the open, 

 and breathe in deep draughts of this supposedly health-giving gas; to 

 mountain tops and forests we go in search of its renovating properties; 

 and our mail is fat with circulars descriptive of the marvelous benefits 

 of ozone machines, of ozonizers and ozonators. In many offices and 

 homes we find these machines, busily at work discharging into the at- 

 mosphere their peculiarly odoriferous product. Very recent investiga- 

 tions, however, seem to make it clear that the supposed beneficial powers 

 of ozone as a home companion are creations of the imagination. Two 

 groups of American investigators, Jordan and Carlson in Chicago and 

 Sawyer, Beckwith and Skolfield, in Berkeley, have independently car- 

 ried out each a series of careful experiments on the action of ozone on 

 bacteria, animals and human beings. They find that ozone will indeed 

 kill bacteria exposed in a room, but only when in such concentration 

 that it will kill guinea-pigs first. 



There is no evidence for supposing that a quantity of ozone that can be 

 tolerated by man has the least germicidal action. 



When present in any considerable quantity in the air ozone is irri- 

 tating and probably corrosive to the lining membrane of the air pas- 

 sages of the nose, throat and lungs, causing the blood-vessels of this mem- 

 brane to be excessively dilated and to present the customary symptoms 

 of " sore throat." It causes headache and drowsiness. The heart, at 

 first accelerated, is later slowed and weakened, and the pressure of the 

 blood in the arteries is unduly lowered. The case for ozone thus seems 

 to narrow down to a supposed beneficial action in destroying or modi- 

 fying unpleasant odors in the air of a room. When in not too great con- 

 centration such odors are, it is true, overcome, though it is quite prob- 

 able that their disappearance is due, not to an actual destruction of the 

 odoriferous substance, but partly to a replacement of the disagreeable 

 odor by the odor of ozone and partly to fatigue or anesthesia of the 

 olfactory membrane of the nose. It is very questionable whether this is 

 wise, and Jordan and Carlson well say: 



It seems to us that this is wrong in principle, and that ozone is being used 

 and will be used as a crutch to bolster up poor ventilating systems. Ozone does 

 not make pure air any more than strong spices make pure food. 



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