'I do not know if it be true, as has been advanced by Mr Hunt and other persons, that ozone is deficient in the atmospheric air when some wide-spread malady, such as cholera, is raging. In any case, it would be easy, by means of the prepared paper, to determine the truth or fallacy of this opinion.
'There is one fact which should particularly engage the attention of physicians and physiologists, which is, that, of all seasons, the winter is distinguished by the greatest proportion of ozone; whence it follows, that during that season the air contains least of oxidizable miasma. We can say, therefore, with respect to this class of miasma, that the air is purer in winter than in summer.
'All my observations agree in shewing, that the proportion of ozone in the air increases with the height; if this fact be general, as I am disposed to believe, we must consider the upper regions of the atmosphere as purer, with regard to oxidizable miasma, than the lower.
'The appearance of certain maladies--intermittent fever, for example--appears to be connected with certain seasons and particular geographical conditions. It would be worth while to ascertain, by ozonometric observations, whether these physiological phenomena have any relation whatever with the proportion of ozone contained in the air in which they occur.
'Considering the obscurity which prevails as to the cause of the greater part of diseases, and the great probability that many among them owe their origin to the presence of chemical agents dispersed in the atmosphere, it becomes the duty of medical men and physiologists, who interest themselves in the progress of their science, to seize earnestly all the means by which they may hope to arrive at more exact notions upon the relations which exist between abnormal physiological phenomena and external circumstances.'
Such is a summary of M. Schoenbein's views as communicated to the Medical Society of Basel; and we the more readily accord them the publicity of our columns, as, apart from the intrinsic value of the subject, it is one which has for some time excited the interest of scientific inquirers in this country. During the late visitation of cholera, reports were frequently spread that the atmosphere was deficient in ozone.