ABSTRACT
I. Introduction 182
II. The Early Days 182
III. The Era of Dessauer and Tchijevsky 183
IV. The Era of Krueger and Kornblueh 185
V. Hydroaeroions/Electro-Aerosols 187
VI. The Present and the Lessons of History 189
References 190
I. INTRODUCTION
The history of air ion research is the story of a controversial field and the individuals who shaped it. Viewed from the perspective of scientific research in the 1980s, much of the air ion research has scientific shortcomings, especially the earlier work. My personal experience in this field ranges from impressive clinical results with electro-aerosol inhalation therapy in patients with respiratory disorders'.2 to experiments, conducted with state-of-the-art technology, which failed to affect any of more than 20 blood parameters,' although such effects had been reported by many of the early investigators (see below). The dichotomy of results appears to be typical of air ion research, but then, controversy in the form of contradictory or inconsistent results is not unique to air ion research as it is rather common in other branches of biomedical research. A discussion of the scientific merits of past air ion research would exceed the scope of this historical chronicle and is given elsewhere in this book. An extensive, albeit incomplete, list of references is included in this chapter so that the history buff or the scientist interested in specific aspects of some of the earlier work may be able to study the original publications and form his/her own opinion.
