The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED. The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 1914. THE VALUE Of RADIUM.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 14, 16 January 1914, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED. The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 1914. THE VALUE Of RADIUM.

For the cause that lack* •stietanee, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice eon do.

The proposal submitted to the American Congress to nationalise the radium supply of the country will probably secure a great deal of support even in a- legislature which is not particularly "eoeialietic" in its tendencies. For the evidence that has accumulated of late as to the medical value of radium is so very striking in .-naracter that the necessity for an enlargement of the supply is being forcibly urged upon every civilised community throughout the world. Radium .bromide, the form in which this extraordinary stuff is employed as a therapeutic agent, is enormously expensive—the. present value of a tube" containing 250 milligrammes is about £5,000 —which means that if there were a pound weight of this substance in existence it would be worth about a million pounds sterling. But the existing supply is very email, and the minerals from which it is extracted are not. pf frequent occurrence. The chief source is located in Austria, and there the Government is said to nave taken steps to acquire the mines in question. The argument is that, if radium is so valuable a curative agency as it is claimed to be, it is not right that the welfare of the race should be subordinated .to the exigencies of trade or the demands of individuals; and no doubt these considerations will carry weight in America and in every other country fortunate enough to possess a supply, actual or potential, of this precious substance. Radium occurs only in very small proportions .in pitchblende and sinrflar rodce; and it ie therefore very easy to "corner the market." But il this can be done it surely should be done by.the State, in the public interest, and not for the profit of private citizens.

Of comae, the interest and excitement now centred round xadmm imply thai its daime ea a curative agency on already well established. On each a enbject am this it behoves the average unprofeesional penson to apeak with extreme diffidence; and even the most experienced . doctors and surgeons of the day have so far confesesd themselves unable to come to any definite dsciiioa about the effects oX radium ejnan*^

tions and the nature of their action. The other day one of the physicians at Middlesex Hospital, where » large man her of cases have been subjected to radium treatment, published reports on 68 cancer cases admitted to the Hospital last year, of •which 32 were discharged as cored. This is said to be an unprecedented record, and though the Middlesex Hospital authorities have disclaimed responsibility for the publication of these facts, ana advised caution in forming any judgment on the curative powers of radium, the evidence eeoms to be very hopeful and encouraging. Among the experiments conducted at Middlesex Hospital, the following typical cases are worth quoting from the "Daily Mail." A man, 27 years old, was admitted August 25, 1913. "He had a large sarcomatous growth blocking up the back of the nose and throat behind the soft palate. He lost all sense of smell, could not breathe through t"he nose, and was deaf in the right ear through the growth obstructing the tiny air tube which connects the back of the throat with the ear. A' platinum tube containing 82 milligrams of radium was embedded in the turnout and left in position 12 hours. Five days later- the growth had shrunk preceptibly and the sense of smell and ability to breathe through the nose were regained; On September 16, on examination with a laryngoscope, no traces of the growth could" be found, and the 'patient, who had regained complete hearing, was discharged apparently cured."

Again, in January, 1913, a woman wae admitted to King's College Hospital under . the care of Sir Wateon Gheyne, one of the most eminent of English surgeons. "Eighteen monthe previously ehe .wae operated upon by Sir Wateon Cheyne for a growth under the jaw which had ulcerated, and to cover which. a flap of sfcin had to be taken from the aide of the neck. Three months after she noticed under the chin a small growth, which rapidly got larger. The woman became worse and worse, and eventually she wae re-admitted to the hospital, where sections of the growth 1 were proved to .be cancerous. Sir Wateon Cheyne suggested radium. At the end of five weeks the growth had disappeared, and externally the wound had healed up." Experts will probably discuss'at length the important question whether, the growths in "question were cancerous or not. But in any case there seeme to be no doubt that obstinate and malignant growths of what seems to be a cancerous type have yielded in the most remarkable way. to the influence of the radium emanations, and so strong a " prima facie" caee has been made out in its favour that the scientific world is fully juetified in the expenditure of the large amount of time energy and money now devoted in every The pecuniary side of the problem i 3 certainly an important one. ■ Sydney Hospital so far hue only £4,000 worth of radium, and the Radium Institute potasses onjy 4 grammee, vahied at about £80,000. Bui as Sir Frederick Treves, the chairman of the Institute, has lately announced, the emanations of Tadium, enclosed in tubes and fixed by liquid air, are now available for therapeuliic treatment; and in place of paying enormous eume for the precious substance itself, hoepitale may in a short time toe abie to hire iheee tubee from the leading curative inetitrabions. As Sir Frederick Treves announces that 500 bottles of radium water are issued weekly by tie Institute, and the effect hae been etrongly jnaj'ked in caeee of rheamat,iem, it would; peem that the poesfbrlitiee of thie ■wonderful-.therapeutic agent ate only just beginning to develop.