Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 4.djvu/484

468 than when the air is dense; but ozone and electricity both increase as we rise, and very likely this fact will explain the exhilaration and invigoration which not only consumptives but nervously exhausted patients experience on removing to the mountains. The benefit that consumptives find, by residence in elevated districts, is almost entirely of a general, stimulating tonic character, that could very well be explained by the ozone and electricity which they inhale far more abundantly than in the lowlands. The benefit derived from a change of residence from the city to the country may be, in part, similarly explained.

The influence of atmospheric electricity and ozone must always be taken into consideration in estimating the effects of medical treatment. Exacerbations of neuralgia, or rheumatic pain, or general malaise or attacks of melancholia, or mania, may be excited by low atmospheric conditions, when, perchance, we suppose that the treatment we employ is working badly; and, conversely, the exhilaration that patients feel at various times should sometimes redound to the credit, not of the physician, but of the electricity or ozone in the air. There are days when all our patients seem to be depressed—all appear to be going down—and there are days when all appear to be doing well. We cannot be too cautious in attributing these changes to other factors besides the treatment we employ. We are justified in encouraging disheartened patients, who are ready to perish, with the hope that, not unlikely, they may be suffering from low atmospheric conditions that will in time correct themselves.

In order to settle some of the questions raised in this paper, I would offer these four suggestions:

I. Let daily observations in atmospheric electricity and ozone be undertaken under the patronage of the governments of different countries at all meteorological and astronomical stations. These observations, carried on for a number of years, would help to answer many important queries, and, among others, whether there is more or less of atmospheric ozone in America than in Europe. The data derived from such comparative researches would help, perhaps, to explain the peculiar and unparalleled nervousness of the people of the United States. They might help to explain the extraordinarily stimulating character of the climate of California. They might help to explain the fact that, on the Pacific coast, sunstroke is not apt to occur, even under very high temperature; while, in the East, prostration from exposure to heat not very excessive is, almost every summer, a common affection.

II. Let comparative observations be made of the atmospheric electricity and ozone of low and elevated regions. The data derived from such observations might help to explain the great benefit that consumptives and nervous patients so often find by a residence among the mountains. They might help to explain the absolute relief or cure