History of Ozone Therapy

Ozone was discovered by Dutch physicist Martinus Van Marum in 1785. It would take another 55 years before it was synthesized by the German chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein. In 1873 Fox discovered that ozone was a potent anti-microbial agent. As far back as 1881 ozone was used as a disinfectant. The discovery crossed the ocean to North America and in 1885, the Florida Medical Association published the first textbook on medical applications of ozone, written by Dr. Kenworth. Dr. John Kellogg described ozone use in his book on diphtheria.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) patented his first ozone generator in 1896 and he was the first to ozonate olive oil.

In 1911, Dr. Noble Eberhart, head of the Department of Physiology of Loyola Chicago University, in the “Manual of High Frequency Operation,” stated that he used ozone to treat tuberculosis, anemia, chlorosis (iron deficiency anemia), tinnitus, whooping cough, asthma, bronchitis, hay fever, insomnia, pneumonia, diabetes, gout and syphilis. He created the first university teaching center dedicated among other things to ozone therapy.

Dr. Blass founds in 1913 the first German association of ozone therapy. Two years later, Dr. Wolf, chief surgeon of the medical services of the German army, extends its use for topical treatment of infected wounds, frozen foot, gangrene and decubitus ulcers. Dr. Wolf later published Medical Ozone, the classic book about ozone therapy.

In the 1980’s Renate Viebahn-Hansler wrote the classic text, The Medical Use of Ozone in which she describes innumerable local and system applications of ozone therapy. In 2010 the International Scientific Committee on Ozone wrote The Madrid Declaration which serves as a standard for ozone therapy. The Madrid Declaration was revised in 2015 and contains references and instructions for every kind of ozone application currently used in the scientific ozone community, including this clinic.