This is a highly informative article that clarifies many questions regarding the subject of breathing ambient air source ozone and is a must read.

For the sake of brevity, I have abridged the introduction to the full article. However, you can find the complete version here:
http://oxygenmedicine.com/ozonetoxicity.html


Good Health,
Neo.

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NOTE: THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION TO OZONE RESEARCH. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF BORDERLAND RESEARCH, EXCERPTS WERE INCLUDED IN ED MCCABE’S FIRST BOOK “OXYGEN THERAPIES” ON PAGE 91. THIS IS THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE. READ TOGETHER WITH PART TWO “ELECTRON HEALING” IT IS VERY ENLIGHTENING AND WILL ANSWER MANY QUESTIONS. EARLY OZONE RESEARCH OWES A DEBT TO MERLIN.

Of IONS and OZONE and MICE and MEN
by Merlin C) 6-30, 1986

OZONE TOXICITY---PART ONE

SUPER OXYGEN and FREE ELECTRONS

(Notice: I make no therapeutic or health claims for the uses of ionized air, ozone, or free electrons applied to any form of human or animal life in the United States, where it is illegal to do so under FDA rules. Exper­iences, observations, and theories relative to my ongoing studies of electrical charges and altered air gasses and their possible therapeutic effects are presented as a reference and guide to other investigators to either verify or disprove my statements and carry on additional stud­ies for the good of mankind.)


All experiments I describe can be easily duplicated with proper equipment. My theories and speculations about the mechanisms of experimental results I have achieved are certainly open to questioning and challenge, and I am open to all comments from my readers. The quest here is for new knowledge and for future dev­elopment of new technologies in healing. For those who are offended by new con­cepts, please keep an open and inquiring mind!


THE MOUSE THAT WALKED AWAY (An Introduction)

My fascination with this whole thing began 16 years ago while I was working as a chemist and process developer for a research and development laboratory. I bad been given an assignment to evaluate an electron generator to see if it might fit in as a part of an age cultural produce decay control program my company marketed.



The machine that was loaned to us for evaluation had been designed and sold as an environmental air purifier for buildings and other enclosed areas. The inventor claimed his device had proved quite effective in stopping mold growth in cheese ageing warehouses, which seemed to make it worthy of our own invest­igation since we were involved in the control of fungi and other organisms that cause fruits and vegetables to spoil.

I will describe the device more thoroughly later on. But for now, it was basically a rectangular sheet metal box with one end screened to allow air to be drawn in by an internally mounted squirrel—cage fan which then exhausted the effluent air out of a smaller port at the front of the box. It was powered by 110 VAC house current, with on/off switch and a graduated rheostat knob to reg­ulate the current going to the primary side of a transformer. The secondary output side then delivered up to 5,000 volts to a stack of ceramic plates posit­ioned in the stream of air drawn through the device. When turned on at full power a blue—violet plasma glow of electrons could be seen within the air spaces between the plates. By reducing the power to the transformer with the rheostat control, the intensity of the plasma glow would diminish.

The idea, as it was presented to me, was that a portion of the air being drawn through the machine would pass through the plasma of the discharge plates and carry with it extra electrons as it left the exhaust port. In turn, these electrons would fly off and attach themselves to airborne particulate materials, imparting a negative charge that would cause them to precipitate out of the air, as its method of air purification.

My preliminary tests in the microbiology lab with the electron generator proved quite successful in killing or controlling a wide variety of cultured microorganisms in Petri dishes. Further tests on infected fruits and vegetables were equally encouraging.

However, one question remained to be answered before the test program could go into a packinghouse where workers would be breathing this treated air: that of toxicity. This posed a real concern to me because at high power settings the effluent air smelled strongly ozonic. All available literature citations I studied indicated the toxic nature of ozone to man and animals in the concen­trations necessary to achieve germicidal effects. In fact, one test report sub­mitted to the FDA stated that in ozone—bactericidal studies on infected animals, the test animals had died before the bacteria were completely destroyed. It seemed very likely at this point that I would have to put this research project to bed, in spite of the outstanding test results I had had thus far.

To make the final determination I chose to run some toxicity studies using lab mice as my subjects. For openers, I decided on a maximum exposure to a mouse in a small cage with the machine at 100% power setting. In fact I was so con­vinced that the animal could not survive such an extreme test, that I deliber­ately chose a severely diseased mouse that didn’t have long to live anyway. My main interest here was in doing a postmortem to determine the effects of the electron—air on. The lungs.

The mouse was indeed in very pathetic condition. All fur was gone from its head and neck from either fungal or cancer disease, and the exposed skin was brown and leathery and covered with open lesions from constant violent scratch­ing. The right eye was opaque white with cataract, and a huge tumor engulfed its stomach, so large that the mouse could barely get its feet on the ground.

I placed the mouse in a wooden cage (about 1,400 cu. in.) adapted with a duct port on the side so that the full stream of air from the electron generator would enter the cage and exhaust through the openings of the peg board door at the rear of the cage. Food, water, and nesting material were provided, and the machine was turned on at maximum power setting.

Observing the mouse through the glass front of the cage, I noted initial agi­tation from the wind blast of the air effluent going into the cage. But, within an hour it was busily shredding up paper for a nest, between fits of violent scratching. Later in the evening, and well beyond the tine I had predicted that he would be in extreme distress from ozone, the mouse seemed completely serene in his new environment, looking as healthy as he could be for his condition, but with one notable change.....he wasn’t scratching! By next morning all of the inflamed les­ions of the head and neck were dry and had developed healing scabs. Throughout the rest of this test the mouse functioned normally in all respects, receiving a total of sixty continuous hours of undiluted exposure to this (ozonic) air from the elect­ron generating machine.

One of the fascinating aspects of research work is the unexpected results that turn up in the course of studies. In this case the mouse was alive, which was in­credible enough in itself. However, what followed my attempt to kill it was even more spectacular.

After completion of the test the mouse was maintained in the cage, with normal air ventilation, for six weeks of observation for any long term deleterious eff­ects of the test that might show up. Curious things began to reveal themselves as the days unfolded. Within a week all of the lesions were healed and scabs gone and skin becoming soft and normal looking. At two weeks the entire affected skin area was a normal pink color and new fur was beginning to grow. Also, the tumor seemed noticeably smaller. By the end of six weeks the mouse was normal in all respects, with new fur on the head and neck, the stomach tumor completely gone, and the right eye pink and clear and visually responsive. He was then returned to the main breeding cage where he sired many litters and lived to a respectable age with no further signs of disease or other complications.

This ozone—like gas not only did not kill, but it actually healed! It was time to take another hard look at ozone toxicity.



OZONE TOXICITY

Research literature and abstracts on ozone and its toxicity are rather plen­tiful, but unfortunately quite often contradictory. From all of this confusion it seemed to me that the physical and chemical properties and actions of the— atomic oxygen, 03, or ozone may have a lot of dynamics unaccounted for, and that these undefined and unaccounted—for variables could be what was causing so much divergence of test results among various researchers.

The first major clue came to me from a report on “The Toxicity of Ozone” by Clark E. Thorp, Chairman, Dept. of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering of the Armour Research Foundation of Illinois Institute of Technology, published in INDUSTRIAL MEDICINE and SURGERY, Feb. 1950, Vol. 19, and No. 2. In this report he showed that electrically produced ozone from air was indeed highly toxic; while ozone produced in the same way, but with pure oxygen instead of air, had no reasonable toxicity. The key difference between these two ozones is that the ozone derived from air contained high amounts of nitrogen oxides, while the pure oxygen derived ozone contained only ozone. However, no explanation was given about the reasons for toxicity of the ozone with nitrogen oxides.

Another interesting clue in this lengthy report came to notice when it was mentioned that one researcher was able to produce a less toxic ozone (with lower amounts of nitrogen oxides) from air by carefully maintaining low air humidity which lessened electrical arcing between the discharge electrodes of his ozonizer. This item was interesting to me in view of the fact that I had earlier established that the electron discharge plates of the machine I was using produced a cold plas­ma. The electrodes of the ozonizers cited in Thorp’s report produced electrical arcing at high power settings which increased at higher ambient humidity.

A trip back through the chemistry books revealed that a rather exotic array of nitrogen oxides (NOx) gases of various atomic combinations are formed by the thermal fusion or, more correctly, thermal fixation of nitrogen and oxygen in air. Among these various chemical combinations formed by this high temperature fixation are nitric oxide (NO) gas and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) gas, which is formed by a chemical union of nitric oxide and oxygen (i.e.: 2NO+O2=2N~). The MERCK INDEX des­cribes nitrogen dioxide as a reddish—brown gas; irritating odor; and a deadly poison! I also determined that temperatures within the corona of high voltage electrical arcing will exceed 2,000 deg. F., ample thermal energy to combine air nitrogen and oxygen.

Without belaboring too much more chemistry, nitrogen dioxide is also a water soluble gas that will combine easily with water to form nitric acid (HNO3), thus: 3NO2+H2O=2~~+NQ. Nitric acid is a powerful oxidizer and destructor of animal protein. This gave me a hunch about the mystery of ozone toxicity that needed some testing to define.

By this time I had built a test version of the electron generator I had been using, incorporating the commercial version components into a unit with an air flow chamber that allowed 100% of the forced air to pass through the electron dis­charge plates. Also within this unit I installed a separate Jacob’s Ladder hot sparking device powered by a separate 7,000 VAC transformer, for comparative stud­ies of hot spark vs. cold plasma air gases.

As I have often been prone to do in my research studies, I chose an extreme test which I could work downward from, as needed, to get the information I was seeking. In the lexicon of research, this refers to the establishment of parameters or boundaries of conditions of a test project. In this area I have seldom been con­servative. My personal thought here is that the bigger the vista you observe, the greater the amount of useful information and junk you will get back. The real art form of this approach is in being able to sort out the trash.

With an air pump rigged to recirculate air through the chamber and into a jar and then back through the chamber, I was able to get highly concentrated modified air gases derived from either of these electrical discharge devices. The concen­trated air gas from the hot sparking Jacob’s Ladder was amber in color, while the concentrated effluent from the cold plasma electron discharge plates was colorless.

Young white mice placed in the amber hot spark gas expired in two to three min­utes. Mice placed in the colorless cold plasma gas died in five to ten minutes. However, mice placed in a jar containing effluent from the commercial test unit, at full power setting, experienced initial breathing discomfort, but soon adjusted to the new environment and survived an exposure of one hour without ill effect.

Postmortem examination of the above killed mice revealed some interesting evidence:

i) In all three mice killed separately in the amber hot spark gas, there was severe hemorrhaging of the lung tissues and air passages, including nose. One mouse had a major tissue hematoma adjacent to the artery leading into the left leg. And all had major hematomas of heart muscle tissues.

2) The three mice killed by the colorless cold plasma gas all evidenced severe edemas of lungs and bronchial passages, but no evidence of bleeding. One mouse had a massive embolism (blood clot) in the upper left chamber of the heart.

My analysis of the above evidence indicates that in the hot spark gas killed mice, violent and swift tissue disintegration or erosion occurred in all moist areas contacted by the gas in breathing, and that this corrosive action was carr­ied in the blood causing erosion of veins and arteries with blood leakage into tissues (hematomas) adjacent to eroded vessels closest to the lungs, where the gas was introduced into the blood stream.

It might be well to note here a couple of items mentioned earlier. First, the amber color of the hot spark gas matches the ‘reddish—brown’ color described in the Merck Index~ for nitrogen dioxide. Secondly, it has been established that nitrogen dioxide combines with water (mucus membrane fluid and blood) to form ni­tric acid, an aggressive tissue protein destroyer. Confirmation of this nitric acid theory came when I bubbled this hot spark gas through distilled water, producing a faintly yellow colored liquid which tested out as nitric acid in quali­tative lab analysis.


Postmortem evidence in the mice killed by the cold plasma gas indicates that massive edemas (secreted body fluids) in the lungs as primary cause of death due to suffocation. Since there was no evidence of bleeding or tissue erosion, I sus­pect that edema causing irritation resulted from excess oxygen release from an unstable form of oxygen other than 02. In the Thorp cited studies of pure oxygen derived ozone, the much higher toxic limits of this pure ozone produced breathing discomfort and irritation and secretion of fluids from exposed mucus membranes. The evidence of this oxidizing effect possibly accounts for the heart embolism being brought on by excess free oxygen in the blood, imparted through the lungs, and causing formation of the blood clot.

It should be remembered here, that both of these tests were with extremely high altered air gas concentrations, exaggerating the speed and impact of test results.

In reviewing these results I conclude that hot spark altered air should be considered toxic in even very low concentrations, due to its demonstrated ability to produce traumatic damage to pulmonary and adjacent tissues. Cold electron plas­ma altered air is most likely tolerable in much higher concentrations, with its toxic limits defined by duration of exposure and the lower thresholds of irritat­ion to the pulmonary system; the same being true for pure ozone. Keep also in mind that the mice exposed to the very ozonic cold plasma air from the commercial machine at 100% power setting suffered only transient breathing difficulty and survived a one hour exposure, indicating high time/concentration limits of cold plasma electron modified air.

In conclusion, research evidence of my own and others suggests that there is a popular misnomer of definition in the common usage of the word, “ozone”, and automatically equating it to the word, “toxic”. I further suggest that ozone toxicity be defined and accounted for by its co-constituent presence of acid forming nitrogen dioxide. This is to say, that within reasonable limits of con­centration, ozone is not the toxic agent!

Therapeutic and other uses and studies of ozone and ozone—like altered oxygen gases should be confined to ozonic gases free of nitrogen oxides and derived from either pure oxygen or the cold plasma electron discharge process, when air is used as the raw material.

Where extremely high concentrations of these ozonic gases are used, care should be taken to prevent such concentrations from being breathed over any extended period of time due to their irritating effects on pulmonary tissues.

(to be continued)

In the next enclosure--PART TWO (see Electron Healing), I will present a view of electrical inter— relationships of negative ions, ozone, and super oxygen which may contain atomic groupings higher than 03, and how these super oxygens liberate a dense avalanche of free electrons which seem to be responsible for some rather extraordinary healing effects and disease reversal, and various other unique physical phenomena.



Merlin