DEADLY DISEASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 99, 29 April 1939, Page 14

DEADLY DISEASE.

RADIUM MINERS SUFFER. 7ti DRAINS OF METAL, 18 DIE. BERLIN. The (JerriiH n Government has ordered a special inquiry to be made into the cause of the deadly disease, Bronchialcarzinoin, responsible for the early deat/i* of the Sudeten miners who work in the famous uranium pitch-blend deposits near • fonchimsthal, which represent the second source of radium in the world. Sudeten workers, about 300 in number in the three mines in the district, rarely live beyond the age of forty. The average age at which they die is now thirtysix. For the past two decades this medical problem of how to prevent the dread disease striking down the miners at such an early age has ha-IHed the beat doctors and scientific brains in the Czech Republic, and although the Czech Government created the Masaryk Funds of 300,000 crowns for research work, the problem still remains unsolved. Miners continue to die prematurely. Eighteen Deaths in Twelve Months. Now that the mines ha\e come into the possession of the Third Reich, after the absorption of the Sudentenland last October, the German Government is faced with this social problem, and German medical men arid scientists have been urged to help in its solution. Herr Birke, Nazi Labour Front inspector for the Sudenten district, said recently: "Eighty million Germans cannot wish that for the sake of radium 300 men should live so badly and die in such misery." Only 5 grammes (76.1fi Troy grains) of raaium was produced from the mines last year, but eighteen miners died during the twelve months. Former years have, always seen an annual death toll of between ten and fifteen workers. In all cases breathing organs were vitally affected and lungs destroyed. Working conditions in the mines, it is claimed, nave been improved since the Nazis took over four months ago. Wages are being increased, and a five-day week underground—instead of six days— has been introduced. A number of workers who have been longest in the mines have been brought to Germany for holidays. If German medical and scientific men fail to find a way of preventing the miners dying prematurely, it is suggested i that other methods must be tried out of working the mines.

It is thought that miners could stand, without great danger to their health, three to five years' work in the .mines and then turn to other occupations. Novel Plan. A novel ideal put forward by one German official is that criminals who refuse to reform should be put to work in the pitch-blend mines. After the Curies discovered radium just over forty years ago, Joachimsthal became world-famous because the little Sudeten town possessed the only uranium I pitch-blend deposits in Europe from which radium could be extracted. Early this century radium brought £37,500 for • gramme (15-432 Troy grains). Although the uranium pitch-blend is to be found only in the smallest quantities in the mines, no less than fifteen wifoßi are needed in order to obtain one sirigle gramme of radium. To-day's price for radium is between JE7OOO and £10,000 per gramme.