city of the
atmosphere, and is known to be a most powerful agent of oxidation,
causing serious modifications of organic bodies, and, consequently, of
their physiological action. 'To assure myself,' he pursues, 'that
ozone destroys the miasma arising from the decomposition of animal
matters, I introduced into a balloon containing about 130 pints of
air, a piece of flesh weighing four ounces, taken from a human corpse,
and in a very advanced state of putrefaction. I withdrew it after a
minute; the air in the balloon had acquired a strong and very
repulsive odour, shewing that it was charged with an appreciable
quantity--at least for the smell--of miasm caused by the putrefaction.

'To produce ozone, I introduced into the infected balloon a stick of
phosphorus an inch long, with water sufficient to half cover it. At
the same time, for the sake of comparison, I placed a similar quantity
of phosphorus and water in another balloon full of pure atmospheric
air. After some minutes, the reaction of ozone in the latter was most
evidently manifested, while no trace of it was yet apparent in the
former, which still gave off an odour of putrefaction. This, however,
disappeared completely at the end of ten or twelve minutes, and
immediately the reaction of the ozone was detected.'

The conclusion drawn from this experiment is, that the ozone destroyed
the miasm by oxidation, and could only make its presence evident after
the complete destruction of the noxious volatile substances. This
effect is more strikingly shewn by another experiment.

A balloon of similar capacity to the one above mentioned was charged
as strongly as possible with ozone, and afterwards washed with water.
The same piece of flesh was suspended within it; and the opening being
carefully closed, it was left inside for nine hours before the air of
the balloon presented the least odour of putrefaction. The air was
tested every thirty minutes by an ozonometer, and the proportion of
ozone found to be gradually diminishing; but as long as the paper of
the instrument exhibited the slightest trace of blue, there was no
smell, which only came on as the last signs of ozone disappeared.
Thus, all the miasm given off by the piece of flesh during nine hours
was completely neutralised by the ozone with which the balloon had
been impregnated, so small in quantity as to be but the 6000th part of
a gramme. One balloon filled with ozonified air, would suffice to
disinfect 540 ba