INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF AIR DEVOID OF AIR IONS In the last decade of the past century, the Russian hygienist I. I. Kiyanit syn advanced the concept of "oxidizing microorganisms," which were supposedly always spinning in the air together with which they reached the lungs and penetrated into the blood, facilitating the process of oxidation in tissues and organs. The idea seemed most improbable, even at the time it was advanced, but Kiyanitsyn was convinced of its validity and strove to substantiate it experimentally. His experiments, performed at the laboratory of Academician V. V. Pashutin, proved to be very simple. Ex perimental animals were placed in a hermetically sealed glass chamber into which air was pumped through a glass tube loosely packed with hygroscopic cotton. Kiyanitsyn assumed that all "oxidizing microorganisms" would be retained in the cotton plug, and the experimental animals (rats, guinea pigs, rabbits, dogs, and pigeons) deprived of these microorganisms would die, notwithstanding the ample supply of food and water, and the generous exchange of air.
Indeed, Kiyanitsyn's experimental animals and birds invariably did perish, and the respective analyses proved that their death was caused by the reduced rate of oxidation in their organisms, i. e., accumulation of products of incomplete oxidation in urine, the abrupt fall in their body temperature soon after experiments began, etc.
At that time scientists did not pay proper attention to these studies. In 1915, the present author studied Kiyanitsyn's work and found it extremely interesting and faultless, except for his interpretation of the results be obtained. By that time, atmospheric electricity and air ionization had already been adequately substantiated by physicists. In 1918, this author undertook a series of experiments which clearly revealed that negative air ions had a beneficial effect on animals while positive air ions were generally detrimental. It was also established that the cotton filters used by Kiyanitsyn absorbed all air ions as well as all charged particles from the air.