It is necessary for all who would understand the applications of ozone for any purpose, whether for bleaching purposes or pure chemical purposes, or for medical or sanitary purposes, to understand these preliminary facts concerning it, facts which bring me to the particular point to which I wish to refer to-day.
In my essay describing the model city, Hygeiopolis, it was suggested that in every town there should be a building like a gas house, in which ozone should be made and stored, and from which it should be dispensed to every street or house at pleasure. This suggestion was made as the final result of observations which had been going on since I first began to work at the subject in 1852. It occurred to me from the moment when I first made ozone by Schonbein's method, that the value of it in a hygienic point of view was incalculable.
To my then young and enthusiastic mind it seemed that in ozone we had a means of stopping all putrefaction, of destroying all infectious substances, and of actually commanding and destroying the causes which produced the great spreading diseases; and, although increase of years and greater experience have toned down the enthusiasm, I still believe that here one of the most useful fields for investigation remains almost unexplored.
In my first experiments I subjected decomposing blood to ozone, and found that the products of decomposition were instantly destroyed, and that the fluid was rendered odorless and sweet. I discovered that the red corpuscles of fresh blood decomposed ozone, and that coagulated blood underwent a degree of solution through its action. I put dead birds and pieces of animal substances that had undergone extreme decomposition into atmospheres containing ozone, and observed the rapidity with which the products of decomposition were neutralized and rendered harmless. I employed ozone medicinally, by having it inhaled by persons who were suffering from fœtor of the breath, and with remarkable success, and I began to employ it and have employed it ever since (that is to say, for thirty-seven years), for purposes of disinfection and deodorization, in close rooms, closets, and the like. I should have used it much more largely but for one circumstance, namely, the almost impracticable difficulty of making it with sufficient ease and in sufficient quantities to meet the necessities of sanitary practice. We are often obstructed in this way. We know of something exceedingly useful, but we cannot utilize it. This was the case with ozone. I hope now that difficulty is overcome. If it is, we shall start from this day on a new era in regard to ozone as an instrument of sanitation.
As we have seen, ozone was originally made by charging dry oxygen or common dry air with electricity from sparks or points. Afterward Faraday showed that it could be made by holding a warm glass rod in vapor of ether. Again he showed that it could be made by passing air over bright phosphorus half immersed in water. Then Siemens modified the electric process by inventing his well known ozone tube, which consists of a wide glass tube coated with tinfoil on its outside, and holding within it a smaller glass tube coated with tinfoil on its surface. When a current of dry air or oxygen was passed in current between these two tubes, and the electric spark from a Ruhmkorf coil was discharged by the terminal wires connected with tinfoil surfaces, ozone was freely produced, and this was no doubt the best method, for by means of a double-acting hand bellows currents of ozone could be driven over very freely. One of these tubes with hand bellows attached, which I have had in use for twenty-four years, is before the meeting, and answers as well as ever. The practical difficulty lies in the requirement of a battery, a large coil, and a separate bellows as well as the tube.
My dear and most distinguished friend, the late Professor Polli, of Milan, tried to overcome the difficulties arising from the use of the coil by making ozone chemically, namely, by the decomposition of permanganate of potassa with strong sulphuric acid. He placed the permanganate in glass vessels, moistened it gradually with the acid, and then allowed the ozone, which is formed, to diffuse into the air. In this way he endeavored, as I had done, to purify the air of rooms, especially those vitiated by the breaths of many people. When he visited me, not very long before his death, he was enthusiastic as to the success that must attend the utilization of ozone for purification, and when I expressed a practical doubt, he rallied me by saying I must not desert my own child. At the theater La Scala, on the occasion of an unusually full attendance, Polli collected the condensible part of the exhaled organic matter, by means of a large glass bell filled with ice and placed over the circular opening in the roof, which corresponds with the large central light. The deposit on this bell was liquid and had a mouldy smell; was for some few days limpid, but then became very thick and had a nauseous odor. When mixed with a solution of one part glucose to four parts of water, and kept at a temperature of from 20° to 24° C., this liquid underwent a slow fermentation, with the formation, on the superficies, of green must; during the same period of time, and placed under the same conditions, a similar glucose solution underwent no change whatever.
By the use of his ozone bottles Polli believed that he had supplied a means most suitable for directly destroying in the air miasmatic principles, without otherwise interfering with the respiratory functions. The ozonized air had neither a powerful nor an offensive smell, and it might be easily and economically made. The smell of ozone was scarcely perceptible, and was far less disagreeable than chlorine, bromine, and iodine, while it was more efficacious than either of these; if, therefore, its application as a purifier of a vitiated air succeeded, it would probably supply all the exigences of defective ventilation in crowded atmospheres. In confined places vessels might be placed containing mixtures of permanganate of potassa or soda and acid in proper quantities, and of which the duration of the action was known; or sulphuric acid could be dropped upon the permanganate.
This idea of applying ozone was no doubt very ingenious, and in the bottles before us on the table, which have been prepared in Hastings by Mr. Rossiter, we see it in operation. The disadvantages of the plan are that manipulation with strong sulphuric acid is never an agreeable or safe process, and that the ozone evolved cannot be on a large scale without considerable trouble.
In 1875 Dr. Lender published a process for the production of ozone. In this process he used equal parts of manganese, permanganate of potash, and oxalic acid. When this mixture is placed in contact with water, ozone is quickly generated. For a room of medium size two spoonfuls of this powder, placed in a dish and occasionally diluted with water, would be sufficient. As the ozone is developed, it disinfects the surrounding air without producing cough.
Lender's process is very useful when ozone is wanted on a limited scale. We have some of it here prepared by Mr. Rossiter, and it answers exceedingly well; but it would be impossible to generate sufficient ozone by this plan for the large application that would be required should it come into general use. The process deserves to be remembered, and the physician may find it valuable as a means by which ozone may be medically applied, to wounds, or by inhalation when there are fœtid exhalations from the mouth or nostrils.