THE ION EFFECT: The Mysterious Powers of Electrified Air

by Fred & Alan Edmonds Soyka ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 1976

They call it the Foehn in Switzerland, the Mistral in France, the Santa Ana in California, the Hamsin in Israel. These are the ill winds that blow nobody good--""witches' winds"" that irritate or depress, aggravate the wheezes and sneezes. The hypothesis is that it is not the heat or humidity such winds may bring that affects people, but the change in charged particles in the atmosphere. An excess of positive ions is bad, an excess of negative ions good. A minimum number and a delicate balance are necessary for life. But it's not only the wind--local geography, hills, valleys, rocks, bodies of water, all contribute to the delicate balance. Soyka was moved to write this book after his company transferred him to Geneva and he experienced general malaise. It soon dawned on him that his periods of remission coincided with absences from Geneva. His talks with doctors and psychiatrists led him to contemporary and earlier investigators of ion effects. The general conclusion is that most of us are affected to some degree by ion imbalance; Soyka is one of a large minority very severely disturbed. To make matters worse, all our urban trappings of hermetically sealed buildings, excess cars and buses, synthetic materials, and air pollutants make for further positive ion excesses. They should be eliminated as much as possible, local ion counts made, and negative ion generators used to restore balance. Soyka and Edmonds are rather too missionary in their zeal to find a positive ion root for all society's evils, but the research they report merits serious examination and action.

Pub Date: Feb. 25, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1976

Categories: NONFICTION