A DECADE LATE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 128, 27 November 1923, Page 7

A DECADE LATE

THE RADIUM APPEAL

DR. A. MARTIITS LEAD IN 1914 CAN THE FUNDS (OLD AND NEW) BE LINKED. What Wellington people are doing now for Radium they were aeked to d° in 1914. when the late leader of the Palmerston North Radium Appeal invited Wellington to join the crusade. The question is now put: Can the Radium funds of 1914 and , 1922 be combined. If the late Dr. A. A. Martin, of Palmerston North, noted surgeon and eminent New Zealander, had not lost his life in the Great War, his inspiring leadership would have established Radium treatment in the North Island years, ago. Early in 1914, through the initiative of himself and other residents of Palmerston North, over £2000 had been raised by the first Radium Appeal, fathered by a Palmerston North committee, and Dr. Martin wrote in that j year:—

■^ c ,are doping that AVellington will take up the cross and carry on the crusade. It is hard to believe that nearly a decade elapsed ■ before Wellington responded.But better late than never. DR. MARTIN'S FORESIGHT. An eloquent letter contributed to the Press by the late Dr. Martin, in support of this pioneer Radium Appeal, shows such foresight and insight that it would be incorporated to-day into the advocacy of the new Radium (Radiation) Appeal. What has happened in the interim confirms what Dr. Martin wrote then. The gentleman who was Minister of Public Health in 1914, having mentioned Radium, as an "experimental" treatment, Dr. Martin comments :— "In the most frienily way, I should ! like to point out that Radium treatment has advanced beyond being a mere experiment. It is to-day an acknowledged and accepted treatment in certain diseases, notably malignant disease rodent ulcers, certain eye. conditions cer-