£250,000 AN OUNCE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 257, 26 July 1930, Page 24

£250,000 AN OUNCE

World’s Costliest Product RADIUM SUPPLIES Few scientists living in 1895 would have predicted that the last five years of the 19 th century would provide three discoveries of scientific importance so far-reaching that they would strike at the foundations of scientific belief. These were the discovery of X-rays, radium, and electrons. Writing on the national importance of radium in the “Nineteenth Century” for May, Dr. Sidney Russ remarks that for many years radium was purely a laboratory product. The demand for it was small and was restricted to a few scientists. As its therapeutic value became recognised the demand increased and its production on a larger scale was undertaken. The first source of supply was the mines of St. Joachimstahl, in Czechoslovakia. The pitchblende, a mineral containing about 60 per cent, by weight of uranium, was worked locally or sent to laboratories for separation and concentration of the minute fractions of radium. During the war most of the radium came from Californian deposits, containing only 2 per cent, of uranium. A rich discovery in the Belgian Congo led to the establishment of a factory fit Oolen, in Belgium, which at present is practically the world’s sole source of radium, Even the richest ore only yields one-fifth of a gramme of radium to the ton, so that 150 tons of ore have to be worked to recover one ounce. Radium ore has been found in several parts of the British Empire, but it is not rich enough to be worked profitably.

£250,000 An Ounce.

Radium is the most costly product in the world to-day. | At its present price of £l2 a milligramme it costs just half of its war-time price. Were an order placed for such an enormous quantity as one ounce it is doubtful whether it could be bought for much less than £250,000. The justification for such a price forms ample ground for controversy. Any article, however, is sold for what the vendor can get for It. It may be assumed that the factory at Oolen has reduced its price to a figure that will show a satisfactory profit, yet is low enough to keep out competition. • ’

There are two consequences of the high price of radium. One is that rich countries have better chances of getting radium treatment than poor countries, and the other that even in rich countries there is not enough yet to go round. One cause of the shortage is that the medical requirement does not form the only demand. More than one half of the available supply is used for illuminating the faces of signs, clocks, and watches. A curious point concerning the current price of radium is that in the early years of its production it was made in laboratories for about 30/a milligramme. The factories argue that the cost of £l2 a milligramme is justified by the costly type of labour, and that when the world is fully supplied the factories must remain idle. Moreover, in the laboratories the production of the radium was only a side issue and no permanent staff was necessary. It is probable that a reduction of demand would result in a reduction of price. If people gave up the luxury of illuminated timepieces the supplies available for use against cancer would automatically increase.

After surveying the use of ■ radium in cancer and the results obtained, Dr. Russ points out that it has assumed not only a national but an international importance, and that a committee of the League of Nations has been comparing results obtained from the treatment of one<particular variety of cancer in many parts of the world. The British National Radium Trust has decided to concentrate the greater part of the nation’s supply in medical centres in the United Kingdom where there are medical schools.