194 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



is any source of ozone existing in the body ; whether any tissue has 

 the power of exciting the polarity of oxygen, so as to generate ozone 

 as the result of its nutritive processes ; and, secondly, what is the 

 meaning and interpretation of the change of color in the blood under 

 the influence of ozone. It has never yet been shown that any such 

 power exists in blood itself; on the contrary, all experiments made for 

 that purpose tend to prove the reverse. Blood shaken with air or 

 oxygen, or left to decompose with free access of air, never, at any 

 time, gives the slightest indication of containing ozone. The same 

 may be said of the various tissues of the body ; but this does not show 

 that there is no generation of ozone in the process of growth or 

 nutrition ; and when we consider, on one hand, the apparent de- 

 pendency of the generation of ozone upon electric action ; and, on 

 the other hand, the intimate relations between animal nutrition and 

 the nervous system, it must be admitted to be not altogether improb- 

 able that the oxygen in the circulating fluids may undergo, partially 

 at least, this change: Blood may be slightly ozonized by being made 

 the medium of a continuous current of galvanism ; although it must 

 be admitted that the blood, as it exists in the system, has not yet been 

 shown to contain ozone. It is not difficult, I think, to interpret the 

 change of color which takes place in the blood during the first few 

 hours of the action of ozone. Considering the manifest change in 

 the corpuscles which, subsequently, progresses more rapidly to their 

 entire destruction, I think we may fairly regard it as the first physical 

 sign of their degeneration. Whether any analogous degeneration of 

 corpuscles takes place in the systemic capillaries, as a consequence 

 of their ministration to the function of nutrition is, I suppose, quite 

 uncertain. The immediate physical cause of the change of color 

 appears to be, indeed must be, in both instances the same, viz., an 

 alteration in the shape of the corpuscles, but I do not think there has 

 yet been offered an adequate explanation of the cause of that altera- 

 tion in the body. But whether the change is due, in the two in- 

 stances, to the same cause or not, it is clear that it is accompanied 

 by somewhat different conditions, for in the body it is instantaneous, 

 whereas, under the influence of ozone, it requires, under the most 

 favorable circumstances, two or three hours. Caseine behaves towards 

 ozone like albumen, being, indeed, transformed, in the first instance, 

 into albumen. Of the remaining organic substances to be met with 

 in the body, it may be stated, as a general rule, that all those which 

 pass off as pure excretory matters are indifferent, or nearly so, to the 

 action of ozone. Thus bile, when freed from mucus, fat, and coloring 

 matter, is unaffected by it ; and, of course, the various constituents 

 of bile, taurine, glycocoll, the organic acids, etc. The same is true 

 of the excretory constituents of the urine, urea, allantoin, alloxan, 

 and kreatin ; but uric acid, which is perhaps not a perfect excretion, 

 is readily oxidized, producing allantoin, urea, and oxalic acid. Fibrin e 

 is quite unaffected by ozone, which seems to accord with that theory 

 of the nature of fibrine which regards it rather as the product of 

 waste, as worn-out albuminous matter, analogous to an excretion, than 

 as the material of nutrition. There are substances, however, which 

 are unaffected by ozone, but which are oxidized in the system ; such 

 are gelatine and sugar. 



