386 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [June 



the rich to aid the poor by a cheerful submission to such taxes as 

 may be necessary for the proper cleansing and scavengering our 

 city. It has been beautifully put by one of England's fa- 

 vourite writers: — "That the universal diffusion of common 

 means of decency and health is as much the right of the poorest 

 of the poor, as it is indispensable to the safety of the rich, and 

 of the State ; that a few petty boards and corporate bodies —less 

 than drops in the great ocean of humanity around them — are not 

 for ever to let loose fever, malaria, and consumption on God's 

 creatures at their will, or always to keep their jobbing little 

 fiddles going, for a Dance of Death." 



Chemical and physical agents produce Ozone, while the decay 

 of vegetable and animal matter consumes it, and when the balance 

 is destroyed between its production and consumtion, disease is the 

 consequence. Ozone is apparent in large quantities in the pine- 

 forests of America, and but few of the diseases arising from 

 malaria exist in their neighbourhood, except where marshes are 

 numerous — their exhalations, under a tropical sun, producing what 

 is termed marsh-miasma. Ozone is generally found to exist in 

 larger quantities in the winter than in summer — more particularly 

 in Montreal, because there then is a much less decomposition of 

 animal and vegetable matter. 



Ozone in excess has been found to prevail when disease of the 

 lungs and catarrh are in the ascendant ; it has been frequently 

 remarked that easterly winds aggravate these diseases. Dr. 

 Beckel, jr., of Strasburgh, selected cases suffering from pulmonary, 

 bronchial, and heart diseases, carefully comparing the numbers 

 admitted into hospital through a long period of time, and by the 

 fluctuation of the ozonometer, and the variation of the tempera- 

 ture, he came to the conclusion that pulmonary diseases are in 

 adverse relation to the quantity of Ozone, and in reverse relation 

 with the degree of temperature. When there is much Ozone 

 with a low temperature, such diseases increase, and death often 

 ensues ; whereas, when there is little Ozone with a high tempera- 

 ture, the contrary occurs. Scoutetten's tables show similar results. 

 Schonbein states, that in Berlin a diminution of atmospheric Ozone 

 coincides with the production of gastric disorders, and that 

 there was a complete absence of Ozone in that city, during the 

 invasion of the cholera, and that indications of Ozone in large 

 quantities give rise to pulmonic affections. 



Persons interested in the bleaching of linen fabrics have of late 



