FIGHT AGAINST CANCER

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24793, 6 February 1946, Page 6

FIGHT AGAINST CANCER

RADIUM EMANATION PLANT

INSTALLATION IN CHRISTCHURCH

" The Press ” Special Service WELLINGTON, Feb. 5. A radiufn emanation plant and a quantity of radium in solution are to be forwarded by the Wellington Hospital Board to the X-ray laboratory of the New Zealand branch of the British Empire Cancer Campaign Society at Canterbury University College. This plant was bought originally by the citizens of Wellington, who in 1924 raised £ll,OOO for its purchase. During the war years it has lain idle, and now it is to be brought back into use at Canterbury College. The first call on the output of the plant will be given to sufferers from cancer. Dr. John Cairney, superintendent-in-chief of the Wellington Public Hospital, told his board-at its recent meeting that during the war years, owing to the impossibility of obtaining technical assistance for the emanation plant, there was no course but to cease the production of radon and dismantle the equipment. There still remained, as radium salt in solution and lying idle, a quantity of radium approximating to 400 milligrammes. It was considered by those closejy concerned that th? plant should be re-established in' Christchurch in the Cancer Campaign Society’s laboratory and with the society’s physicist available for Its proper supervision. TTiis proposal has for some time had the general approval of the consultation committee in Wellington subject to the consideration that the ownership of the radium should be retained by Wellington and that Wellington should have first claim on the yield of radon from the plant. The radium emanation plant, when it is installed in Christchurch, will play an important part in the fight against cancer and in the study of the disease in the laboratory of the New Zea!?nd t- rar >ch of the Cancer Campaign Society.