- Email: [email protected]
ON OZONE.
79 in India during ninety years; and though the career of the last two terminated prematurely, the fourteen eminent men who have held that high office since 1772, for periods varying from one to ten years,-or six years on an average,-filled their expected number of years by the English life-table. 25. The pensioners in England who have served in the East and West Indies die much more rapidly than the officers ; but this is probably due to the circumstances in which they are it is not an easy matter to throw off at home placed. And the habit of dram-drinking which they have been taught in the tropics. 26. In the present section the facts lead to the following
results :a. The mortality of the officers who were stationed with the British and native troops, regular and irregular, all over India was excessive, and involved great losses of life and property; but it was less by 31 per 1000 than the mortality of the soldiers. It follows that the lives of nearly half the soldiers, in less unfavourable conditions, might for the future be saved. b. The civil servants, at the soldier’s age, did not die at a rate higher than 20 in 1000; and as they were distributed all over the country, it follows that the climate of India is not necessarily fatal to any higher proportion. The excess is due to other causes. c. The diseases of the Indian civil servants, from which they have a comparative immunity in England, are known to be the same as are fatal to the soldier.
adequate.
The
women are
at the rate of 35 per
exposed to great hardship,
and die
1000, including those of English birth
and the Eurasians. 15. In the Lower Orphan School of Calcutta the mortality was double or treble the English rates; but results greatly more favourable are obtained at the Laurince Military Asylum. on the hills. 16. Eurasians exceeded the British in the city of Calcutta at the census of 1837; for while the British amounted to 3138, the Eurasians were 4746, or, including those of the suburbs, 5981. 17. Mr. Tait and others have investigated the mortality from imperfect data ; and we see no reason to justify the inference that the mixed race of Anglo-Indians is an exception to the rule, that the mortality of all the races in India bears a constant proportion to the variable sanitary conditions in which they live.
ON BY HENRY
OZONE.
DAY, M.D. ST. AND., M.R.C.P. LOND.,
PHYSICIAN TO THE STAFFORD COUNTY INFIRMARY.
SINCE the year 1840, when Schönbein commenced to place before the world his researches on " Electrified Air," " Ozone,"or, as it has subsequently been called, " Alotropic Oxygen," no smaller subject than this has engaged the attenMortality among the European Population; Officers’ Wives and tion of scientific men. Eurasians. Children; The subject has attracted the attention of three classes of The I. British population in India, according to the returns the physicists, the chemists, and the physicians. observers: of the several Governments, amounted to 125,945 ; consisting of an army, its wives and children, and people in civil life, inThe physicists have been struck by the bearing of the question in relation to the general phenomena of the universe-by cluding the civilians in the public service. 2. At the census of 1861, the European officers and men of the changes, as it would seem, which mere matter may be the army in India were 84,083, the civilians were 22,556, and made to undergo under the influence of force. For, and from the women were 19,306. this reason too, their minds have been brought to the con3. Allowing for any defects in the returns, it is evident that, sideration of analogous phenomena observed in the transmuexclusive of the army, the population would not fill one English county town; and, including the army, it would be less than the population of the London parish of Marylebone. 4. Of the Royal army, the proportions married, it will be seen, vary at each age: 93 per cent. of all ages were unmarried men ; of the Europeans of the late Company’s regiments, 70 per cent. were unmarried; of the civil population, of the age of twenty and upwards, 50 per cent. were unmarried-a large proportion as compared with the unmarried population of England. 5. A higher proportion of the officers than of the men in the Royal army was married. 6. The rate of mortality among married soldiers and the unmarried has never been ascertained in either service ; but Mr. Griffith Davies ascertained that the married officers in the Bengal Military Fund died at the rate of 27 in 1000 ; the unmarried at the rate of 38 in 1000. 7. The subject requires further investigation ; for this excess of 11deaths annually is the more remarkable as the unmarried officers were younger than the married. 8. The married ensigns died at the rate of 16, the unmarried at the rate of 36 in 1000 annually. Here the life without a home in India is triply fatal. 9. The women and girls enumerated as " British-born subjects in India" amounted to 19,306, of whom 9773 were twenty years of age and upwards, including 7570 wives, 1146 widows, and 1001 unmarried women. 786 wives under the age of twenty make the number of wives of English origin, under the age of forty-five, to be 7626, scattered all over India. 10. The wives of several Indian officers, if invalids, go to England ; but the number in India in the early periods is so great that the mortality of the wives of officers of the Indian army may be taken to represent the mortality of English women in India. 11. At the ages from twenty to forty the mortality of wives and widows in the Madras Military Fund did not, according to Mr. Samuel Brown, exceed 14 in 1000 per annum. 12. They were exposed to many of the same insanitary influences as were the soldier and the officer; but the mortality is not higher than it was in London during the last century. 13. All the deaths over 10 in this class, as in the others which have been investigated, are by the diseases not only of India, but of all unhealthy places. They may be reduced by energy and action, as they were increased by inaction. 14. The wife and children of the non-commissioned officer and soldier do not fare so well as those belonging to the superior ranks, provision for their accommodation being in-
tations of phosphorus under the influence of heat; and some kind of countenance has been given to what may, perhaps, be called the ancient-modern notion-which the alchemists believed and a Faraday did not disbelieve,-that a day will come when elementary forms of matter will be reduced to a few simple types, if not to one type. To the chemists the subject has been of interest, in that they have found a new body to occupy their attention, new compounds springing from it, new views respecting the molecular condition of elements, new speculation as to combinations, and the expression of combinations by symbols and
equivalents. To the physicians
ozone has afforded a wider-I had almost wilder-field. They have believed they saw in it a cause of disease; a remedy for disease; a preventive of disIt has been obtrusive; it has been perplexing. It has ease. been a subject of vast erudition; and yet it is, up to this day, a subject of intense doubt. Whilst some hold it almost in wonder, others are heretical enough to dispute its existence altogether, the majority hesitating and asking for more light.
said
a
*
..
*
History.-The earliest electricians
*
appear to have formed an idea that common air did not admit of electrisation. For instance, Benjamin Franklin, whose researches in electricity are second to none, says, in a letter addressed by him to Peter Collison, F. R. S., of London, in 1749 : " Air is an electric, per se; and, when dry, will not conduct the electrical force. It will neither receive it nor give it to other bodies; otherwise, no body surrounded by air could be electrified positively and negatively. For,"he argues, " should it be attempted positively, the air would immediately take away the surplus; or, negatively, the air would supply what was wanting." In the main, there can be no doubt Franklin was correct. It is clear that air can never be so electrified as to become either a conductor of electric currents on an intense conductor of electrical force. If it could, what Franklin said would be true: the air would be the prime conductor and prime holder of all electrical force. But the generalisation of Franklin was * * rather too sweeping notwithstanding. It will be remembered that he wrote the above before the time of Priestley, and that in speaking of air he included under that term what he believed to be an elementary body; and so far was he right that even now, with our knowledge of the compound nature of air, and the capacity of one of its elements - oxygen-to be influenced by electricity, and with electrical apparatus of the most powerful kind at our command, we can
80 one part in twelve of that oxygen which forms only one-fifth of the atmospheric scene. The discovery of oxygen by Priestley led after a few years to the revision of the Franklinian hypothesis as to the absolute incapability of the air to be influenced by electricity. In 189, Van Marum, an electrician of Holland, practising on the vital air of Priestley, or, as it has since been named, oxygen, discovered that, after electric sparks had been passed through this gas, a particular odour was developed, which he spoke of as "an electrical odour,"and which represents what is now called, on the same nomenclature, but from a Greek
only affect
At what reduced degrees of temperature. may become manifested, is question
of
temperature
yet unsolved; but that it disappears at an elevated temperature admits of direct proof. In common language, then, ozone is destroyed by heat ; but, it is possibly more correct to say that it loses its character, or certain of its special characters. Why this should be so, is altogether unexplained, except on the sup-
ozone
a
as
of a transmutation of force. lTode of P1’oduction.-Several means exist for the produc. tion of ozone besides those natural means, whatever they may be, which bring it into the air without our calling for it. derivation, "ozone." Amongst the several artificial modes, the first to be mentioned 1-’owards the beginning, of the present century, Cavallo seems should be the original one of passing the sparks of an ordinary to have made a further step, for he observed that a peculiar frictional electric machinethrough the air or through oxygen. condition of air was produced when passing through it electric An improvement on this method has been accomplished by the sparks, which condition he designated the "aura electric."’ use of Ruhmkorff’s induction coil. When sparks are passed Cavallo further observed that this electrified air had a purify- between the electrodes of this machine the air is ozonised; ing effect on decomposing organic matter, and he therefore had but, in order to collect the air thus ozonised, it is necessary to it applied, as he thought with good effect, to fetid ulcers of call in the aid of an "ozone generator." Siemen was the first to use this generator. An improvement on Siemen’s apparatus the human subject. One of the discoveries about this time, having an indirect has been constructed by Mr. Apps, the philosophical instruIII* ’k bearing on the subject before us, deserves attention, the more ment maker in the Strand. so because it independently confirms some more recent observaAnother method consists in passing air over phosphorus tions made by two of the latest experimentalists. The dis- partly immersed in water : a simple ozone-maker of this kind covery I refer to was made by Aldini, the nephew of Galvani, was invented by the late Dr. Barker of Bedford, and another, and Professor of Experimental Philosophy in the University of I believe, by our colleague, Dr. Moffat of Hawarden, whose Bologna, and who became celebrated in this country by his re- researches on the relations of ozone to disease are so widely markable experiments with galvanism on the bodies of exe- known. cuted criminals. Aldini observed that when, by means of a There is also another mode of obtaining ozone, not very metallic point, he electrified the interior of a glass jar, which applicable, but forming a pretty experiment; it consists in he inverted and placed over a plate of metal, so as to form diffusing the vapour of ether through a bell-shaped jar, and what he called "an in8ulated lemuua,"the water in the glass then inserting in the vapour a heated glass rod. The last suggested method is one by M. Morin: it consists in rose several lines in a very short time. Afterwards he repeated the experiment, using mercury instead of water, when dispersing a current of water in the pulverised form-in other he noticed the same occurrence, but in a less marked degree, words, in the form of spray. In these experiments, evidently without knowing the meanThese are some of the principal artificial means for obtaining of the facts he had observed, Aldini saw the condensation ing ozone. Of the manner in which it is produced in nature, of oxygen under the influence of electricity. various theories have been promulgated. Dove, so well known Nearly forty years now elapsed before any further notable for his theories on the laws of storms, thinks that ozone is advance was made; then Schöubein, the late well-known generated in the higher currents in the atmosphere; in fact, ’physical philosopher, commenced his famous researches ; and, during the condensation, in their polar course, of the heated taking the view that the electrical modifications of air rested equatorial currents. Moffat believes he has traced the ozonic ;solely on modifications of the oxygen, proceeded at last to atmospheric periods to particular winds, and also to certain theorise that oxygen itself presents three distinct conditions : phosphorescent states. Lowe holds that the apparent varying the first, a negative polar condition, which he termed " ozone;" intensity of ozone may possibly be attributed to circumstances the second, an opposite condition, which he named antozone;" operating for, or against, its detection; thus, an increase of and the third, a neutral state, resulting from the union of the temperature from increased chemical action would show an increase-a greater velocity of air, an increase-of moisture up two. It was fortunate for Schönbein that his researches very to saturation, after which a minimum will result. At his early obtained the notice of Professor Michael Faraday, who, (i. e., Lowe’s) observatory at Highfield House, near Nottingham, although he attempted but little in original research in this most ozone occurs during the prevalence of a south wind, and ’one direction, made the scientific public, by his brilliant leeleast with a north-east wind ; the maximum being attained tures, most familiar with what had been done, and excited when the barometer is at its lowest readings, and the minimum when at its highest: this, he thinks, may be simply owing to --many observers to prolonged and careful study. The presence of a peculiar body, possessing special proper- the increased velocity of a south wind over a north-east wind, ties, once established by Schonbein, its nature became actively its increased temperature, and its moisture. Others have canvassed; and our countryman, Williamson, started the argued that ozone is the result of electrical discharges in the theory that ozone was a teroxide of hydrogen. This theory, air; and several have assigned to vegetation the generation of based on the supposition that water was always produced this gas. Amongst these last I may name Dr. Daubeny of when ozone was removed, assumed the absolute necessity for Oxford. Dr. Daubeny, judging from the depth of coloration the presence of hydrogen for the production of ozone. It produced upon Schonbein’s papers by exposure to the open air, remained for Andrews and Tait to dispose of this view by as observed during eight months, inferred that the quantity of proving that when hydrogen was entirely excluded, and abso- ozone at Torquay was much greater, on the average, during lute oxygen made to receive the electric spark, the change of the prevalence of winds from the sea. He also endeavoured to oxygen into ozone, to the extreme extent of one part in ascertain whether this ozone was generated by vegetation; twelve, could be demonstratively established. The same and, although he found that light alone coloured the paper, observers further showed, by after experiment, that in this he was disposed to think that, after deducting this, a certain process of change there is condensation of the oxygen, and residual effect was due to the green parts of plants in generatreduction of volume. Finally, they proved that when mer- ing ozone during the day. cury was exposed to ozonised oxygen, the ozone disappeared, Presuming that the opinion of M. Morin is correct, and the same. that ozone can be produced by the spray of water, the prevathe volume of gas remaining The last theory as to the nature of ozone, and which brings lence of ozone during sea-breezes might possibly be traced to the action of sea-spray. In order to ascertain whether there us up to our present knowledge of this curious gas, has been advanced by Dr. Odling, and confirmed experimentally by was any plausibility in the last-named theory, I tested the M. Soret. effect produced by the spray of fresh water and sea water, The facts bearing on this theory have been very ably epi- using Richardson’s spray tube for the purpose of diffusion, tomised in a leading article in the 3[ediccil Times and Gazette and directing the spray against plates of ozone test-paper....... of October 5th, in the present year (1867), which facts prove, As far as these experiments went, and taking them forjust so much as they are worth, the result given was altogether a. as br as can be proved, that ozone is a condensed form of * * oxygen. negative one; but it is by no means certain that experiments I would further remark, that the hypothesis of Schonbein of a somewhat similar kind, on a larger scale, and better derespecting the three distinct states of oxygen has fallen into vised, would not afford evidence confirmatory of M. Morin’s disfa,vour, and that the manifestations of ozone, as a distinct views. I As regards the general question of the natural production of body, can only be demonstrated within certain limited
position
precisely
degrees
81 ozone, many difficulties stand in the way of its solution ; so many bodies present in the air produce such similar effects.
THE SULPHITES IN TYPHOID OR ENTERIC
as Dr. Daubeny observed, is a source of interference, FEVER. and the circumstances under which the ozone seems to appear BY R. S. CROSS, ESQ., M.R.C.S., L.S.A. are so disconnected and variable, that I regret to be unable to report any solid progress in this direction. When we are dealing with artificially prepared ozone, we I BEG to lay before the readers of THE LANCET an account are treating a tangible body, and we can remove nearly all as much as practicable) of an outbreak of typhoid in (abridged obstacles to investigation; but in dealing with air the position is entirely different, and uncertainty instead of certainty meets the neighbourhood of Petersfield during the autumn of 1866. Its history commences with the return of a family from Menus in every foot of our research. Tcsts.-There is, up to the present time, only one recognised tone in the first week of July, one member of which, a little test for ozone-namely, the solution of the iodide of potassium seven or eight years old, was only just convalescent from and starch. Owing to its power as an oxidiser, ozone acts boy an attack which had kept him there far into the hot season. on the potassium of the test compound ; the potassium readily is thus separated from the iodine; the iodine, set free, com- From all I could gather, the disease was of a much more virubines with the starch, forming the iodide of starch, giving a lent kind than is usual in this country, the condition of the blue colour, which is the test. Test-papers, consequently, patient having been, in the later stages more especially, like have been used, the papers being saturated with a solution of that observed in low typhus; his father described the state of iodide of potassium and starch. Three forms of test-papers, his and mouth as if a coat of varnish had been applied tongue thus prepared, are now in use--namely, Schonbein’s, Moffat’s, ’, " * " and allowed to Almost in despair of recovery, he on. dry Lowe has also out in and Lowe’s. another, brought which, on the recommendation of the late Dr. Dundas Thom- was started homewards, and the change appeared to produce son, fifteen grains of chalk are added to each ounce of dried immediate improvement; for, although the weather was instarch to prevent sourness ; this precaution affords great uni- tensely hot all the way, and in London, where he remained a formity of effect. In a further research, Lowe has used what week after his arrival in England, he got home quite recovered. he calls a " dry powder test," using powders of dried wheatstarch combined with iodide of potassium.** *I have On the 27th July we (Mr. Whicher and myself) were called had sent to me within the last few days some test-papers pre- to the lady’s-maid, a thin, weak-looking woman of about forty. pared by Dr. John Day, of Geelong, Australia, who has made Her symptoms were referred to the heat and fatigue of the ozone a special object of study, and who advocates, with great journey after long watching and nursing by the bedside at ability, the views of M. Schönbein. These test-papers are Mentone. At this time, the end of her first week’s indisposiremarkably sensitive, but I regret to say that I have not at tion, I confess to have had some suspicion of the true nature present been made acquainted with the relative proportions of of her the ingredients used in their preparation. * * * malady-a suspicion abundantly confirmed by the apIn order to detect the presence of ozone in the open air, the pearance of the same symptoms in the lady of the house a ozone test-papers, or test-powders, are ordinarily placed in a week later, in two of the maidservants at the end of another box or ozone cage ; the box is coloured dark within to avoid week, then in the gardener’s wife (who had been called in to light, but air is freely admitted. This is the apparatus assist in the kitchen), and also in - employed, I believe, by all the meteorologists who supply of the household-seven in all. the cook, butler, and others reports to Mr. Glaisher. The amount of ozone present is measured by the intensity of the colour, and is registered on To go on with the history of the progress of the malady. At Moffsat’s scale. There are objections to the ozone box, which the end of six weeks, a woman from the parish, who had objections have been. well pointed out by Mr. John Smyth, volunteered to wash the clothes in a cottage at the end of the who thinks that the velocity of air makes a distinct difference garden, failed with it, and it was discovered afterwards that in the registration of ozone. He (Mr. Smyth) has devised an some blankets she had washed had somehow escaped disinfec* * ° tion. Three of her children took it in succession; then a man, apparatus for securing greater uniformity of results. Mr. Smyth shows, from a table of experiments made with this his wife, and five children, in a cottage some three hundred improved ozonometer, that there is not much difference in the yards from where she lived, and so it spread ; in all about cases occurred, from the age of three to seventy-five. quantity of sensible ozone in two masses of air of equal volume, although they may be moving at different velocities, in dif- Most of the cases were very severe ones, the largest number ferent directions, and under different hygrometrical conditions. appearing to have the malady in the most intense form. One He is furthermore of opinion that the ordinary test-papers do boy, about nine years of age, in particular, had to learn to not register high enough. *-*’’* talk, &c., and seemed imbecile for some time. The aggregate The great objection to these test-papers is that discolorations duration of all the cases was ninety weeks. are produced by other agents than ozone, particularly by The symptoms ushering in an attack were a worn expression iodine, the chlorides, hydrochloric acid, nitrous and nitric of face, a sort of pinched look, great lassitude, pains in the acid. In the atmosphere, the last-named acid, from its com- head, back, and limbs, sometimes rigors, almost invariably paratively frequent occurrence, especially after electric storms, diarrhoea, either with or without pains in the stomach and is a serious objection. The late R. D. Thomson affirmed that bowels, nausea or active vomiting, total loss of appetite, some even carbonic acid would aff,,)ct these papers when they were thirst, sleeplessness, pulse quick, ranging between 90 and very sensitive. As this latter point is of importance, I tested 120 ; tongue varying with the intensity of gastric symptoms; some highly sensitive paper with carbonic acid in its nascent where active, would be covered with a yellow coating, edges form and after it had been collected, and found that it occa- and tip dark red; where less intense, looked sodden, large and sioned a slight but evident change of colour. white; always tremulous; and this condition, together with It has occurred to my own mind that possibly a delicate the quick pulse and worn look, often existed many days, and test for ozone might be found by observing the effect produced almost weeks, before the patient complained very much, or by the electric spark when passed through rarefied ozonised gave up and took to bed. Nothing varied so much as the air. For this purpose, a glass globe should first be filled with character and duration of the premonitory stage. air that is saturated with ozone, and then be partially exIn one patient, the lady of the house, there was positively hausted ; through this rarefied ozonised air an electric spark no warning. She became paler than usual, and so rapidly should be passed, and the colour of the spark should be weaker and weaker, that on the third night of my attendance noticed, and compared with the colour of the spark when upon her, with a perfectly clean tongue, without diarrhoea or passed through common air contained in the same vessel. But sickness, and in the entire absence of any dread of the disease, this experiment should be carried further by bringing the she was only saved from sinking by the unsparing and susgases tained use of brandy (two-thirds of a bottle this night), and spectroscope into use. As by some, indeed by many, are supposed to be the vapours of metals, it is feasible that the such was the character of her illness throughout. In another case, that of a stout plethoric girl of eighteen, spectrum would give a different band or bands with rarefied ozonised air from that or those afforded by common air under the malady was ushered in suddenly by symptoms of most similar circumstances and conditions. active biliary disorder, soon followed by the wildest delirium, (To be concluded.) requiring restraint for many days to keep her in bed even; both lung and intestinal complication following in the progress Dr. LANZA, who formerly was in the Italian Cabinet, of the case, which was very long and doubtful. In many has just been appointed President of the Chamber of Deputies. cases, the tongue was for days together dry and hard
Light,
’
thirty
all
results :a. The mortality of the officers who were stationed with the British and native troops, regular and irregular, all over India was excessive, and involved great losses of life and property; but it was less by 31 per 1000 than the mortality of the soldiers. It follows that the lives of nearly half the soldiers, in less unfavourable conditions, might for the future be saved. b. The civil servants, at the soldier’s age, did not die at a rate higher than 20 in 1000; and as they were distributed all over the country, it follows that the climate of India is not necessarily fatal to any higher proportion. The excess is due to other causes. c. The diseases of the Indian civil servants, from which they have a comparative immunity in England, are known to be the same as are fatal to the soldier.
adequate.
The
women are
at the rate of 35 per
exposed to great hardship,
and die
1000, including those of English birth
and the Eurasians. 15. In the Lower Orphan School of Calcutta the mortality was double or treble the English rates; but results greatly more favourable are obtained at the Laurince Military Asylum. on the hills. 16. Eurasians exceeded the British in the city of Calcutta at the census of 1837; for while the British amounted to 3138, the Eurasians were 4746, or, including those of the suburbs, 5981. 17. Mr. Tait and others have investigated the mortality from imperfect data ; and we see no reason to justify the inference that the mixed race of Anglo-Indians is an exception to the rule, that the mortality of all the races in India bears a constant proportion to the variable sanitary conditions in which they live.
ON BY HENRY
OZONE.
DAY, M.D. ST. AND., M.R.C.P. LOND.,
PHYSICIAN TO THE STAFFORD COUNTY INFIRMARY.
SINCE the year 1840, when Schönbein commenced to place before the world his researches on " Electrified Air," " Ozone,"or, as it has subsequently been called, " Alotropic Oxygen," no smaller subject than this has engaged the attenMortality among the European Population; Officers’ Wives and tion of scientific men. Eurasians. Children; The subject has attracted the attention of three classes of The I. British population in India, according to the returns the physicists, the chemists, and the physicians. observers: of the several Governments, amounted to 125,945 ; consisting of an army, its wives and children, and people in civil life, inThe physicists have been struck by the bearing of the question in relation to the general phenomena of the universe-by cluding the civilians in the public service. 2. At the census of 1861, the European officers and men of the changes, as it would seem, which mere matter may be the army in India were 84,083, the civilians were 22,556, and made to undergo under the influence of force. For, and from the women were 19,306. this reason too, their minds have been brought to the con3. Allowing for any defects in the returns, it is evident that, sideration of analogous phenomena observed in the transmuexclusive of the army, the population would not fill one English county town; and, including the army, it would be less than the population of the London parish of Marylebone. 4. Of the Royal army, the proportions married, it will be seen, vary at each age: 93 per cent. of all ages were unmarried men ; of the Europeans of the late Company’s regiments, 70 per cent. were unmarried; of the civil population, of the age of twenty and upwards, 50 per cent. were unmarried-a large proportion as compared with the unmarried population of England. 5. A higher proportion of the officers than of the men in the Royal army was married. 6. The rate of mortality among married soldiers and the unmarried has never been ascertained in either service ; but Mr. Griffith Davies ascertained that the married officers in the Bengal Military Fund died at the rate of 27 in 1000 ; the unmarried at the rate of 38 in 1000. 7. The subject requires further investigation ; for this excess of 11deaths annually is the more remarkable as the unmarried officers were younger than the married. 8. The married ensigns died at the rate of 16, the unmarried at the rate of 36 in 1000 annually. Here the life without a home in India is triply fatal. 9. The women and girls enumerated as " British-born subjects in India" amounted to 19,306, of whom 9773 were twenty years of age and upwards, including 7570 wives, 1146 widows, and 1001 unmarried women. 786 wives under the age of twenty make the number of wives of English origin, under the age of forty-five, to be 7626, scattered all over India. 10. The wives of several Indian officers, if invalids, go to England ; but the number in India in the early periods is so great that the mortality of the wives of officers of the Indian army may be taken to represent the mortality of English women in India. 11. At the ages from twenty to forty the mortality of wives and widows in the Madras Military Fund did not, according to Mr. Samuel Brown, exceed 14 in 1000 per annum. 12. They were exposed to many of the same insanitary influences as were the soldier and the officer; but the mortality is not higher than it was in London during the last century. 13. All the deaths over 10 in this class, as in the others which have been investigated, are by the diseases not only of India, but of all unhealthy places. They may be reduced by energy and action, as they were increased by inaction. 14. The wife and children of the non-commissioned officer and soldier do not fare so well as those belonging to the superior ranks, provision for their accommodation being in-
tations of phosphorus under the influence of heat; and some kind of countenance has been given to what may, perhaps, be called the ancient-modern notion-which the alchemists believed and a Faraday did not disbelieve,-that a day will come when elementary forms of matter will be reduced to a few simple types, if not to one type. To the chemists the subject has been of interest, in that they have found a new body to occupy their attention, new compounds springing from it, new views respecting the molecular condition of elements, new speculation as to combinations, and the expression of combinations by symbols and
equivalents. To the physicians
ozone has afforded a wider-I had almost wilder-field. They have believed they saw in it a cause of disease; a remedy for disease; a preventive of disIt has been obtrusive; it has been perplexing. It has ease. been a subject of vast erudition; and yet it is, up to this day, a subject of intense doubt. Whilst some hold it almost in wonder, others are heretical enough to dispute its existence altogether, the majority hesitating and asking for more light.
said
a
*
..
*
History.-The earliest electricians
*
appear to have formed an idea that common air did not admit of electrisation. For instance, Benjamin Franklin, whose researches in electricity are second to none, says, in a letter addressed by him to Peter Collison, F. R. S., of London, in 1749 : " Air is an electric, per se; and, when dry, will not conduct the electrical force. It will neither receive it nor give it to other bodies; otherwise, no body surrounded by air could be electrified positively and negatively. For,"he argues, " should it be attempted positively, the air would immediately take away the surplus; or, negatively, the air would supply what was wanting." In the main, there can be no doubt Franklin was correct. It is clear that air can never be so electrified as to become either a conductor of electric currents on an intense conductor of electrical force. If it could, what Franklin said would be true: the air would be the prime conductor and prime holder of all electrical force. But the generalisation of Franklin was * * rather too sweeping notwithstanding. It will be remembered that he wrote the above before the time of Priestley, and that in speaking of air he included under that term what he believed to be an elementary body; and so far was he right that even now, with our knowledge of the compound nature of air, and the capacity of one of its elements - oxygen-to be influenced by electricity, and with electrical apparatus of the most powerful kind at our command, we can
80 one part in twelve of that oxygen which forms only one-fifth of the atmospheric scene. The discovery of oxygen by Priestley led after a few years to the revision of the Franklinian hypothesis as to the absolute incapability of the air to be influenced by electricity. In 189, Van Marum, an electrician of Holland, practising on the vital air of Priestley, or, as it has since been named, oxygen, discovered that, after electric sparks had been passed through this gas, a particular odour was developed, which he spoke of as "an electrical odour,"and which represents what is now called, on the same nomenclature, but from a Greek
only affect
At what reduced degrees of temperature. may become manifested, is question
of
temperature
yet unsolved; but that it disappears at an elevated temperature admits of direct proof. In common language, then, ozone is destroyed by heat ; but, it is possibly more correct to say that it loses its character, or certain of its special characters. Why this should be so, is altogether unexplained, except on the sup-
ozone
a
as
of a transmutation of force. lTode of P1’oduction.-Several means exist for the produc. tion of ozone besides those natural means, whatever they may be, which bring it into the air without our calling for it. derivation, "ozone." Amongst the several artificial modes, the first to be mentioned 1-’owards the beginning, of the present century, Cavallo seems should be the original one of passing the sparks of an ordinary to have made a further step, for he observed that a peculiar frictional electric machinethrough the air or through oxygen. condition of air was produced when passing through it electric An improvement on this method has been accomplished by the sparks, which condition he designated the "aura electric."’ use of Ruhmkorff’s induction coil. When sparks are passed Cavallo further observed that this electrified air had a purify- between the electrodes of this machine the air is ozonised; ing effect on decomposing organic matter, and he therefore had but, in order to collect the air thus ozonised, it is necessary to it applied, as he thought with good effect, to fetid ulcers of call in the aid of an "ozone generator." Siemen was the first to use this generator. An improvement on Siemen’s apparatus the human subject. One of the discoveries about this time, having an indirect has been constructed by Mr. Apps, the philosophical instruIII* ’k bearing on the subject before us, deserves attention, the more ment maker in the Strand. so because it independently confirms some more recent observaAnother method consists in passing air over phosphorus tions made by two of the latest experimentalists. The dis- partly immersed in water : a simple ozone-maker of this kind covery I refer to was made by Aldini, the nephew of Galvani, was invented by the late Dr. Barker of Bedford, and another, and Professor of Experimental Philosophy in the University of I believe, by our colleague, Dr. Moffat of Hawarden, whose Bologna, and who became celebrated in this country by his re- researches on the relations of ozone to disease are so widely markable experiments with galvanism on the bodies of exe- known. cuted criminals. Aldini observed that when, by means of a There is also another mode of obtaining ozone, not very metallic point, he electrified the interior of a glass jar, which applicable, but forming a pretty experiment; it consists in he inverted and placed over a plate of metal, so as to form diffusing the vapour of ether through a bell-shaped jar, and what he called "an in8ulated lemuua,"the water in the glass then inserting in the vapour a heated glass rod. The last suggested method is one by M. Morin: it consists in rose several lines in a very short time. Afterwards he repeated the experiment, using mercury instead of water, when dispersing a current of water in the pulverised form-in other he noticed the same occurrence, but in a less marked degree, words, in the form of spray. In these experiments, evidently without knowing the meanThese are some of the principal artificial means for obtaining of the facts he had observed, Aldini saw the condensation ing ozone. Of the manner in which it is produced in nature, of oxygen under the influence of electricity. various theories have been promulgated. Dove, so well known Nearly forty years now elapsed before any further notable for his theories on the laws of storms, thinks that ozone is advance was made; then Schöubein, the late well-known generated in the higher currents in the atmosphere; in fact, ’physical philosopher, commenced his famous researches ; and, during the condensation, in their polar course, of the heated taking the view that the electrical modifications of air rested equatorial currents. Moffat believes he has traced the ozonic ;solely on modifications of the oxygen, proceeded at last to atmospheric periods to particular winds, and also to certain theorise that oxygen itself presents three distinct conditions : phosphorescent states. Lowe holds that the apparent varying the first, a negative polar condition, which he termed " ozone;" intensity of ozone may possibly be attributed to circumstances the second, an opposite condition, which he named antozone;" operating for, or against, its detection; thus, an increase of and the third, a neutral state, resulting from the union of the temperature from increased chemical action would show an increase-a greater velocity of air, an increase-of moisture up two. It was fortunate for Schönbein that his researches very to saturation, after which a minimum will result. At his early obtained the notice of Professor Michael Faraday, who, (i. e., Lowe’s) observatory at Highfield House, near Nottingham, although he attempted but little in original research in this most ozone occurs during the prevalence of a south wind, and ’one direction, made the scientific public, by his brilliant leeleast with a north-east wind ; the maximum being attained tures, most familiar with what had been done, and excited when the barometer is at its lowest readings, and the minimum when at its highest: this, he thinks, may be simply owing to --many observers to prolonged and careful study. The presence of a peculiar body, possessing special proper- the increased velocity of a south wind over a north-east wind, ties, once established by Schonbein, its nature became actively its increased temperature, and its moisture. Others have canvassed; and our countryman, Williamson, started the argued that ozone is the result of electrical discharges in the theory that ozone was a teroxide of hydrogen. This theory, air; and several have assigned to vegetation the generation of based on the supposition that water was always produced this gas. Amongst these last I may name Dr. Daubeny of when ozone was removed, assumed the absolute necessity for Oxford. Dr. Daubeny, judging from the depth of coloration the presence of hydrogen for the production of ozone. It produced upon Schonbein’s papers by exposure to the open air, remained for Andrews and Tait to dispose of this view by as observed during eight months, inferred that the quantity of proving that when hydrogen was entirely excluded, and abso- ozone at Torquay was much greater, on the average, during lute oxygen made to receive the electric spark, the change of the prevalence of winds from the sea. He also endeavoured to oxygen into ozone, to the extreme extent of one part in ascertain whether this ozone was generated by vegetation; twelve, could be demonstratively established. The same and, although he found that light alone coloured the paper, observers further showed, by after experiment, that in this he was disposed to think that, after deducting this, a certain process of change there is condensation of the oxygen, and residual effect was due to the green parts of plants in generatreduction of volume. Finally, they proved that when mer- ing ozone during the day. cury was exposed to ozonised oxygen, the ozone disappeared, Presuming that the opinion of M. Morin is correct, and the same. that ozone can be produced by the spray of water, the prevathe volume of gas remaining The last theory as to the nature of ozone, and which brings lence of ozone during sea-breezes might possibly be traced to the action of sea-spray. In order to ascertain whether there us up to our present knowledge of this curious gas, has been advanced by Dr. Odling, and confirmed experimentally by was any plausibility in the last-named theory, I tested the M. Soret. effect produced by the spray of fresh water and sea water, The facts bearing on this theory have been very ably epi- using Richardson’s spray tube for the purpose of diffusion, tomised in a leading article in the 3[ediccil Times and Gazette and directing the spray against plates of ozone test-paper....... of October 5th, in the present year (1867), which facts prove, As far as these experiments went, and taking them forjust so much as they are worth, the result given was altogether a. as br as can be proved, that ozone is a condensed form of * * oxygen. negative one; but it is by no means certain that experiments I would further remark, that the hypothesis of Schonbein of a somewhat similar kind, on a larger scale, and better derespecting the three distinct states of oxygen has fallen into vised, would not afford evidence confirmatory of M. Morin’s disfa,vour, and that the manifestations of ozone, as a distinct views. I As regards the general question of the natural production of body, can only be demonstrated within certain limited
position
precisely
degrees
81 ozone, many difficulties stand in the way of its solution ; so many bodies present in the air produce such similar effects.
THE SULPHITES IN TYPHOID OR ENTERIC
as Dr. Daubeny observed, is a source of interference, FEVER. and the circumstances under which the ozone seems to appear BY R. S. CROSS, ESQ., M.R.C.S., L.S.A. are so disconnected and variable, that I regret to be unable to report any solid progress in this direction. When we are dealing with artificially prepared ozone, we I BEG to lay before the readers of THE LANCET an account are treating a tangible body, and we can remove nearly all as much as practicable) of an outbreak of typhoid in (abridged obstacles to investigation; but in dealing with air the position is entirely different, and uncertainty instead of certainty meets the neighbourhood of Petersfield during the autumn of 1866. Its history commences with the return of a family from Menus in every foot of our research. Tcsts.-There is, up to the present time, only one recognised tone in the first week of July, one member of which, a little test for ozone-namely, the solution of the iodide of potassium seven or eight years old, was only just convalescent from and starch. Owing to its power as an oxidiser, ozone acts boy an attack which had kept him there far into the hot season. on the potassium of the test compound ; the potassium readily is thus separated from the iodine; the iodine, set free, com- From all I could gather, the disease was of a much more virubines with the starch, forming the iodide of starch, giving a lent kind than is usual in this country, the condition of the blue colour, which is the test. Test-papers, consequently, patient having been, in the later stages more especially, like have been used, the papers being saturated with a solution of that observed in low typhus; his father described the state of iodide of potassium and starch. Three forms of test-papers, his and mouth as if a coat of varnish had been applied tongue thus prepared, are now in use--namely, Schonbein’s, Moffat’s, ’, " * " and allowed to Almost in despair of recovery, he on. dry Lowe has also out in and Lowe’s. another, brought which, on the recommendation of the late Dr. Dundas Thom- was started homewards, and the change appeared to produce son, fifteen grains of chalk are added to each ounce of dried immediate improvement; for, although the weather was instarch to prevent sourness ; this precaution affords great uni- tensely hot all the way, and in London, where he remained a formity of effect. In a further research, Lowe has used what week after his arrival in England, he got home quite recovered. he calls a " dry powder test," using powders of dried wheatstarch combined with iodide of potassium.** *I have On the 27th July we (Mr. Whicher and myself) were called had sent to me within the last few days some test-papers pre- to the lady’s-maid, a thin, weak-looking woman of about forty. pared by Dr. John Day, of Geelong, Australia, who has made Her symptoms were referred to the heat and fatigue of the ozone a special object of study, and who advocates, with great journey after long watching and nursing by the bedside at ability, the views of M. Schönbein. These test-papers are Mentone. At this time, the end of her first week’s indisposiremarkably sensitive, but I regret to say that I have not at tion, I confess to have had some suspicion of the true nature present been made acquainted with the relative proportions of of her the ingredients used in their preparation. * * * malady-a suspicion abundantly confirmed by the apIn order to detect the presence of ozone in the open air, the pearance of the same symptoms in the lady of the house a ozone test-papers, or test-powders, are ordinarily placed in a week later, in two of the maidservants at the end of another box or ozone cage ; the box is coloured dark within to avoid week, then in the gardener’s wife (who had been called in to light, but air is freely admitted. This is the apparatus assist in the kitchen), and also in - employed, I believe, by all the meteorologists who supply of the household-seven in all. the cook, butler, and others reports to Mr. Glaisher. The amount of ozone present is measured by the intensity of the colour, and is registered on To go on with the history of the progress of the malady. At Moffsat’s scale. There are objections to the ozone box, which the end of six weeks, a woman from the parish, who had objections have been. well pointed out by Mr. John Smyth, volunteered to wash the clothes in a cottage at the end of the who thinks that the velocity of air makes a distinct difference garden, failed with it, and it was discovered afterwards that in the registration of ozone. He (Mr. Smyth) has devised an some blankets she had washed had somehow escaped disinfec* * ° tion. Three of her children took it in succession; then a man, apparatus for securing greater uniformity of results. Mr. Smyth shows, from a table of experiments made with this his wife, and five children, in a cottage some three hundred improved ozonometer, that there is not much difference in the yards from where she lived, and so it spread ; in all about cases occurred, from the age of three to seventy-five. quantity of sensible ozone in two masses of air of equal volume, although they may be moving at different velocities, in dif- Most of the cases were very severe ones, the largest number ferent directions, and under different hygrometrical conditions. appearing to have the malady in the most intense form. One He is furthermore of opinion that the ordinary test-papers do boy, about nine years of age, in particular, had to learn to not register high enough. *-*’’* talk, &c., and seemed imbecile for some time. The aggregate The great objection to these test-papers is that discolorations duration of all the cases was ninety weeks. are produced by other agents than ozone, particularly by The symptoms ushering in an attack were a worn expression iodine, the chlorides, hydrochloric acid, nitrous and nitric of face, a sort of pinched look, great lassitude, pains in the acid. In the atmosphere, the last-named acid, from its com- head, back, and limbs, sometimes rigors, almost invariably paratively frequent occurrence, especially after electric storms, diarrhoea, either with or without pains in the stomach and is a serious objection. The late R. D. Thomson affirmed that bowels, nausea or active vomiting, total loss of appetite, some even carbonic acid would aff,,)ct these papers when they were thirst, sleeplessness, pulse quick, ranging between 90 and very sensitive. As this latter point is of importance, I tested 120 ; tongue varying with the intensity of gastric symptoms; some highly sensitive paper with carbonic acid in its nascent where active, would be covered with a yellow coating, edges form and after it had been collected, and found that it occa- and tip dark red; where less intense, looked sodden, large and sioned a slight but evident change of colour. white; always tremulous; and this condition, together with It has occurred to my own mind that possibly a delicate the quick pulse and worn look, often existed many days, and test for ozone might be found by observing the effect produced almost weeks, before the patient complained very much, or by the electric spark when passed through rarefied ozonised gave up and took to bed. Nothing varied so much as the air. For this purpose, a glass globe should first be filled with character and duration of the premonitory stage. air that is saturated with ozone, and then be partially exIn one patient, the lady of the house, there was positively hausted ; through this rarefied ozonised air an electric spark no warning. She became paler than usual, and so rapidly should be passed, and the colour of the spark should be weaker and weaker, that on the third night of my attendance noticed, and compared with the colour of the spark when upon her, with a perfectly clean tongue, without diarrhoea or passed through common air contained in the same vessel. But sickness, and in the entire absence of any dread of the disease, this experiment should be carried further by bringing the she was only saved from sinking by the unsparing and susgases tained use of brandy (two-thirds of a bottle this night), and spectroscope into use. As by some, indeed by many, are supposed to be the vapours of metals, it is feasible that the such was the character of her illness throughout. In another case, that of a stout plethoric girl of eighteen, spectrum would give a different band or bands with rarefied ozonised air from that or those afforded by common air under the malady was ushered in suddenly by symptoms of most similar circumstances and conditions. active biliary disorder, soon followed by the wildest delirium, (To be concluded.) requiring restraint for many days to keep her in bed even; both lung and intestinal complication following in the progress Dr. LANZA, who formerly was in the Italian Cabinet, of the case, which was very long and doubtful. In many has just been appointed President of the Chamber of Deputies. cases, the tongue was for days together dry and hard
Light,
’
thirty
all