4 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The practical bearings of atmospheric electricity and ozone are 

 manifold : 



1. Many nervous and other diseases and very many nervous sen- 

 sations are perceptibly affected by changes in the quantity of electri- 

 city and ozone. Making the necessary concession that the subject of 

 the relation of atmosphere to health is one of many complications, 

 still we are now in a position to claim with considerable positiveness 

 that a part of the benefit or injury that is derived from change of 

 climate, or from the various atmospheric changes, is the result of vari- 

 ations in the amount of ozone and electricity. After eliminating the 

 factors of heat and cold, which are the most obvious and best under- 

 stood of all atmospheric qualities ; of moisture and dryness, the po- 

 tency of which is everywhere recognized ; of carbonic and nitric acid ; 

 of oxygen pure and simple, there remains much that only ozone and 

 electricity can well account for. 



2. Not a few sensitive and impressible organizations experience 

 variations of strength and debility, of vigor and malaise, that very 

 well correspond to the variations: iir atmospheric electricity, or ozone, 

 or both. There are thousands of people who are at their maximum 

 of strength in the cold months of winter, who begin to decline in 

 the spring, who, in the summer, are at their minimum, and who regu- 

 larly rally during the autumn. There are those who, almost every 

 day, pass through tides of feeling, which, if they do not mathemati- 

 cally correspond to the. daily tides of ozone and electricity in the air, 

 do certainly follow so closely as to make us suspect, to say the least, 

 a certain relation between the variable states of the system and the 

 variable states of the air. From 8 to 12 a. m. is the golden time 

 for brain- work, as all students know ; from 1 to 4 p. m. there are fre- 

 quently a dullness and lassitude that make hard toil a task. Many — 

 even those who take but a lunch in the middle of the day — are sleepy 

 at this time, and, unless they are kept awake by business, are disposed 

 to take a nap. The latter part of the afternoon the spirits revive, 

 and between four and eight or nine o'clock is what might be called 

 the silver period of the day for all mental labor. The night is given 

 to sleep, but those who rise very early do not usually labor to so great 

 advantage as those who defer their severest exertions until the fore- 

 noon. In these statements we but give the experience of the major- 

 ity of brain-workers whose temperament is of the susceptible order, 

 and who therefore appreciate the varying moods of the system. 



The chief complication that enters into these calculations is the 

 fact that there is least ozone and least electricity in the air when there 

 is most heat, and that heat is of itself debilitating. 



3. Irregular disturbances in the electrical condition of the atmos- 

 phere, in storms, and especially in thunder-storms, and, in our climate, 

 northeast storms, unquestionably affect the nervous system of impres- 

 sible temperaments unpleasantly, and bring on or aggravate neuralgic, 



