£1250 A GRAIN.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18548, 25 November 1925, Page 8

£1250 A GRAIN.

RADIUM FOR DISEASE. AUCKLAND HOSPITAL PURCHASE (stecui. TO "the PRESS.") AUCKLAND, November 24. 'There is no doubt that radium is very much used in all the principal hospitals at Home. In fact bo hospital is considered thoroughly equipped unless it has a complete radium apparatus," said Dr. C. E. Maguire, medical superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, who -returned by the Mahana this afternoon from a trip to the Old Country. Dr. Maguiro has inspected a number of the leading hospitals, and in embodying the information he gained in a, report to the Auckland Hospital Board. One of the doctor's principal commissions when abroad was to purchase, on behalf of the Board, a supply of radium. He secured four grains, and that cost £SOOO. The safes for the proper keeping of the radium havo to be pre.pared before it is sent out from London. The apparatus is now on the way, and it is hoped to have the radium here about tho beginning of the year.

Dr. Maguire's remark, mentioned above, was in answer to a query as to the present standing of radium. Being reminded of some of the. criticisms of a noted specialist from the Old Country a few years back, Dr. Maguire said there was no doubt about the standing or radium in the hospital world at Home, and his investigations convinced him that tho thing was only in its commencement. The superintendent of the Radium Institute, who was making a tour of the world, hoped to be in Auckland in March, and would be aole to cdvise the Board fully as to what steps should be taken to develop radium treatment. "Radium is one of the great meang we have to-day of alleviating conditions" in cancer, paid it is also used in many other diseases," said Dr. Maguire. "The mere fact that some time ago in Auckland somebody discounted radium in |i* treatment of disease does not affect the matter at all. Such discounting criticism has been shown to be quite erroneous, and, as I say, all modern hospitals have their radium equipment and use it extensively. There is no doubD that radium has a great future before it."