WHAT IS OZONE?

Evening Star, Issue 20060, 28 December 1928, Page 1

WHAT IS OZONE?

AH AIR PROBLEM Holiday-makers strolling along the esplanade at their lavourite seaside resort sniff the odours of decomposing seaweed, and utter with satisfaction to ouo another the words: “Ah! the ozone!” And, accordingly, they aie content with their holiday, because they are quite certain it is doing them good. But, first of all, the seaweed (containing a little iodine) has nothing to do with ozone; and, secondly, the question of the great beneficial clients of ozone is by no means so certain as may bo casually supposed. . Ozone, it is true, exists in all Ircsh air, and is absent from the atmosphere of large cities, because dead organic matter of many sorts removes it (says an English weekly journal). But it is scarcely present in large enough quantities in any atmosphere to be smelt by even. the most sensitive nostrils. Only when it is in its pure form, undiluted through the air, can its pungent odour bo realised. The name “ ozone ” means “ smelling stuff,” and it is a gas, Sir E. Bay Laukester tells, us,’ that may be'“formed in the air when electric discharges take place. It was discovered by the scientists Tate and Andrews to bo a condensed form of the elemental gas oxygen. In the open air, of course, it is dispersed in miiiuto quantities, giving a special oxidising activity to the "atmosphere, the actual quantity being only one part in 700,000. , But the measure of its benefit to our health has not definitely been settled by experiment. 11 it were great, it would be easy, presumably, to inaugurate ‘ ozone rooihs ” in cities fitted with special air of the right chemical properties, which would be cheaper for most of us, surely, than hotel bills and train fares. But hero the mysterious element of holiday places must be taken into account. The health-giving air of our favourite resort may not be due to ozone, but. to who knows what other ingredients of the atmosphere. For the air in different places can differ in so many subtle ways; in whether it is still or windy; in whether it is cool or hot; in whether it is heavy or rarefied, or damp or dry. • Moreover, ozone is not tho only claimant of atmospheric properties to a power of invigorating our bodies. Other ingredients are perfume and volatile oils, such as are given off by pine trees; and perhaps carbonic acid andsulphurous acid in small quantities, and other' recently-discovered gases, such as argon and helium. ■ Ozone, in its purer forms, can be used as a Generated by an electric discharge, it is frequently used for the purification of the water supply of large , towns by reason of its oxidising properties, and even by a few surgeons for the cleansing of abscesses. That aid to vanity in ageing women, peroxide of hydrogen, with which .fading hair is revived to golden tints, is often, it may be added, described as “ ozonised water ” with more or less correctness.. But there remains the air problem. It would be a remarkable change jif our holiday resotts could be accurately graded, by careful research. with their respective tonic air effects set down in the form of a prescription, recommended by doctors according to our needs.