Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455: Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852Various
History
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455: Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852
Various
Periodicals
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 balloons filled with miasmatic air. 'These
considerations,' says M. Schoenbein, 'shew us how little the miasma of
the air are to be appreciated by weight, even when they exist therein
in a quantity very sensible to the smell, and how small is the
proportion of ozone necessary to destroy the miasm produced by the
putrefaction of organic substances, and diffused through the
atmosphere.'
The presence of ozone in any vessel or in the atmosphere, may be
detected by a test-paper which has been moistened with a solution
composed of 1 part of pure iodide of potassium, 10 parts of starch,
and 100 parts of water, boiled together for a few moments. Paper so
prepared turns immediately blue when exposed to the action of ozone,
the tint being lighter or darker according to the quantity.
Schoenbein's ozonometer consists of 750 slips of dry bibulous paper
prepared in the manner described; and with a scale of tints and
instructions, sufficient to make observations on the ozone of the
atmosphere twice a day for a year. After exposure to the ozone, they
require to be moistened to bring out the colour.
M. Schoenbein continues: 'We must admit that the electric discharges
which take place incessantly in different parts of the atmosphere, and
causing therein a formation of ozone, purify the air by this means of
organic, or, more generally, oxidizable miasma; and that they have
thus the important office of maintaining it in a state of purity
suitable to animal life. By means of atmospheric electricity, and,
indirectly, nature thus attains on a great scale the object that we
sometimes seek to accomplish in a limited space by fumigations with
chlorine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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