RADIUM

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 81, 3 October 1921, Page 8

RADIUM

"HAS PROVED A FAILURE"

SIB. THOMAS PARKINSON'S VIEWS.

(It TILIORAPM.—MUSI ISSOCIATION.>

AUCKLAND, This Day.

"Radium has proved a failure," said Sir Thomas Parkinson, a leading London physician, who arrived by the Bemuera. "It has dropped out almost entirely; Many of the leading surgeons ha,ve now discarded it altogether as an agent in surgery. In a large clinic with which 'I am associated we have given it up. We only use it where patients insist upon it; we do it entirely upon their responsibility. There has been no other agent that has been brought more into quackery. What can be done ' with radium can be done infinitely better with X-rays. Quite recently at West London Hospital they succeeded in establishing that any advanced X-ray has a selective property which will attack malignant disease. The drift in London is to discard radium and concentrate on X-rays. The X-ray has stood the test; although many cases are unsuccessful, we can claim many remarkable cures. I believe the money now spent on any form of original work should be concentrated on advancing the X-ray, more especially the new treatment brought in by an Austrian. I think it very unwise indeed to spend large sums in attempting advanced treatment with radium; very wrong that the public should get a false impression of its properties and-actions. Not only is it an ineffective remedy in most cases, but positively dangerous, the results produced by burning aggravating rather lhan improving the disease.