CURES BY RADIUM

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 71, 24 March 1920, Page 13

CURES BY RADIUM

RESEARCH WORK IN BRITAIN AUOBXANDER'S INVESTIGATIONS. Interesting observations -upon the extension of the use of radium and X-rays in experimental and curative work in Britain were made to an Auckland Herald reporter by a well-known Auckland medical man, who has just returned from a trip abroad. While in England he made special investigations in connection with the cancer research work being conducted a-t Middlesex Hospital. This work had been liberally aided by a Government loan of five grammes of radium, a larger quantity than has ever before been available for such a purpose, and of an approximate value of £100,000. Severafhighly interesting and important discoveries, had been made in regard to the immunising of animals from cancer, stated the doctor. It had been found that a brief daily exposure to X-rays immunised them against inoculation, also that if the growth of cancer, before inoculation, was submitted to radiation it withered and disappeared. These discoveries .were re-j ga-rded by the medical profession as high- j )y important in the study of the treatment of the scourge of cancer, i The percentage of cancer ■ cures by radium treatment was not as yet very great, the very limited supply of radium hitherto available having hampered in- j vestigation on the wider scale now possible. Cases operable were still being treated surgically, and cases inoperable by radium. Better results were now being obtained from the extension of the use of radium and X-rays in cases of cancer and other diseases, however, and the result of work being done at Middlesex Hospital was being watched with interest by the medical fraternity throughout the world. The use of radium, continued the doctor, was gradually being extended to tha ti'eatment of a wide variety of diseases hitherton treated by X-rays, such as goitre, skin diseases, and tubercular trouble. It was also being used to a certain extent in the treatment of certain conditions following wounds and war injuries, particularly in cases of stiffness resulting from the matting of. tissues, movement being restored where all massage and other treatment had failed. ftew methods of filtration of radium rays had also been carefully studied, with the 1 result that the harmful rays which in the past had frequently caused serious injury to those being treated had jiow been largely eliminated.