1864. | Sanitary Science. 509 
Béckel,* and Desplats,f have all confined animals in air, ozonized 
either by means of phosphorus or by passing electric sparks through 
it. In every case, the animals died with symptoms of affection of the 
respiratory organs, though Schwarzenbach thinks that the nervous 
system, and more especially the nervus vagus, was also involved. 
During the past year, another series of experiments has been recorded 
by Dr. W. Iveland,{ from which he has been led to form the following 
conclusions :— 
Ist. Ozonized air accelerates the respiration, and, we may infer, 
the circulation also. 
2nd. Ozonized air excites the nervous system. 
3rd. Ozonized air promotes the coagulability of the blood, pro- 
bably by increasing its fibrine. In the blood, however, ozone loses 
its peculiar properties, probably entering into combination with some 
of the constituents of the circulating fluid. 
4th. Animals can be subjected to the influence of a considerable 
proportion of ozone in the air for hours, without permanent injury ; 
but in the end, ozone produces effects which may continue after its 
withdrawal, and destroy life. In ozonizing the air for his experiments, 
Dr. Ireland pursued a plan differing from that adopted by his pre- 
decessors. He introduced sulphuric acid and permanganate of potash 
into a glass bottle, and collected the ozonized air, produced by their 
action on each other, in a glass jar under water. This method seems 
to present decided advantages over the plan commonly pursued, of 
burning phosphorus in air. For in this latter process, not only are 
fumes of phosphoric acid generated, which it is not very easy to get 
rid of, but a part of the oxygen of the air is consumed in the com- 
bustion, and its proportion to the nitrogen, therefore, necessarily 
diminished. 
Whilst on the subject of ozone, we may notice some recent experi- 
ments by A. Schmidt,§ which seem to show that ozone, or a substance 
capable of producing it, exists in the blood. Instead of employing 
iodide of potassium as the reagent for the ozone determination, he 
used strips of paper soaked in a tincture of guaiacum (1 part wood to 
6 parts alcohol), and when the alcohol had evaporated, a drop of blood 
was added to the paper. <A blue ring appeared in the course of a few 
minutes, where the layer of blood was the thinnest. The depth of 
colour of the ring varied with the blood employed: with that of the ox 
and horse it was the strongest ; with that of man, without the addition 
of water, feeble; and with birds’ blood, not at all, until after the 
addition of water, and then strongly. Pure colourless serum did not 
act at all. Schmidt considers the hematin of the blood-corpuscles 
to be the ozone-producing material. He also noticed the oxidizing 
action of the blood-corpuscles on a solution of indigo. Schmidt con- 
cludes that in the blood a quantity of oxygen ready to become ozone 
* Théses de Strasbourg, 1856. 
y+ Théses de Paris, 1857. 
t ‘Edinburgh Monthly Medical Journal,’ February, 1863. 
§ Ueber Ozon im Blute. Dorpat. 1862. 
