CANCER RESEARCH.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20040, 23 September 1930, Page 8

CANCER RESEARCH.

ADVICE AS TO SUPPLIES OP RADIUM.

[TBS PEEB9 SpecUl Service.]

WELLINGTON, September 22,

In order to decide in what quantity and what form further radium should be obtained, the services of Dr. A. Burrows, radium adviser to the Health Department of the Commonwealth of Australia, is being sought. Prior to his Australian appointment Dr. Burrows had a distinguished career at the Manchester Radium Institute. On Dr. Burrows's advice, and after consultation with the local Medical Committee, radium centres were estab lif-hed in all the principal cities of the Commonwealth. Provision was made for the thorough and co-ordinated investigation of all cases of cancer attending these centres. The original Cancer Advisory Committoe recommended that the Commonwealth "should purchase ten grammes of radium, six grammes of which were to be prepared in the forms recommended by Dr. Burrows, and the remaining four grammes for research and mass tre\tment and special purposes. The magnitude of this undertaking can be gauged from the fact that the cost of the radium alone represents £120,000. It is agreed ihat in the four principal cities of New Zealand the supply of radium is defective either in quantity or in form. There is, in fact, a similar shortage of radium in England. His Majesty the King gave for the purchase of radium almost the whole of the very large sum* which he received from the nation as a thanks offering oti his recovery from his illness. It is in orde> to decide in ' what quantity and in what form further radium should be obtained th:it the advice of such a distinguished expert as Dr. Burrows would be of great value.