CANCER RESEARCH

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 41, 17 January 1929, Page 7

CANCER RESEARCH

DEATH OF TWO SPECIALISTS.

TWIN BROTHERS COMMIT SUICIDE.

REDUCED TO STATE OF POVERTY.

(United Press Association. —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Australian Press Association). LONDON, Jan. 16. Two Harley Street specialists, Arthur Brown Smith, radium cancer expert, and Sidney Smith, radium therapeutist, graduates of Edinburgh University, and joint authors of essays on the radium treatment of cancer, were found dead in a flat they took over last week. They were lying on the floor with their throats cut. They were twin brothers, aged 30. Their medical colleagues describe them as brilliant radium cancer experts, who were assured of a future.

A large piece of paper contained the following message to the nation : “We have given our lives to the study of cancer research. We have reduced ourselves to a state of poverty. Life is not worth living.” It is stated that friends in Edinburgh would gladly have helped them. It is suggested that the costliness of radium ruined them.

Tho Daily Telegraph describes the deaths as one of the most extraordinary tragedies of recent years. Photographs of the brothers show a remarkable resemblance, confirming the remarks of friends that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. The twins were tall and dark. Both wore pince-nez and dressed and parted their hair alike. A representative of the Daily Telegraph interviewed both on November 11 regarding the nation’s need for radium. Since then telegrams and rambling letters have been received from the brothers, suggesting that statements had been made against them in the Press, but, as far as is known, no such letters have been published.

The Daily Express states that the brothers attended a party given by a specialist on Saturday night. They arrived early, seemed distraught, and that they wanted to confer privately on an important matter. They used the telephone. Thereafter, one said that a treatise he and his brother had published in a medical journal had produced curious political results. l 'Oh, nonsense,” said the host. An awkward silence followed. The brothers again conferred and finally asked permission to slip away quietly. They departed. Their host, fearing that their minds were unhinged, made a final attempt to pierce the mystery. On Monday the brothers assisted at an operation at St. Paul’s Hospital, performed by a distinguished \\ inipole Street surgeon, who states that the hospital is very poor and lias no radium. Judge, therefore, of his delight when the brothers offered their services and radium free. They brought their own private supply , of radium, consisting of ten needles, which were worth £2OOO. They left the hospital in the evening, promising to assist at another operation on Wednesday. The surgeon is certain that no thought of death had then entered their minds. The newspapers point out that the twins’ resemblance was frequently mental as well as physical. If one was distraught the other was also in a similar condition.