RADIUM AND CANCER.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 16 September 1909, Page 4

RADIUM AND CANCER.

A NEW ZEALAND EXPERIMENT, A recommendation has been made tii 'the Palmerston North Hospital Board that a quantity of radium be obtained for usc in cancer cases. In order to procure the necessary quantity, the sum of £500 will be required .ind it is proposed to raise this sum by public subscription. Already several donations of '-So each have jeon promised. It is interesting to look into the matter of cancer cure by radium. "These statements appear to conduct us to thc belief that radium may be tried as a means of relieving to a certain extent visceral canoers.' ; These statements were made by Dr, Louis Wickham, of Paris, at a meetiug of tho Dermatological Section ol tiuguished audience of medical men ehe Royal Medical Society. A distinguished audience of medical men ipplauded his lecture, and amongst -he listeners was Captain Hayward Pinch, fho newly-appointed medical lirector of the London Radium Institute. Although good work in .he utilisation of ladium as a cure .or disease has boen dono in London, nore has been accomplished in Paris, occauso of tho greater facilities foi research. Dr. Wickham, in the course of his lecture, made one other statement oven moro remarkable than that quoted abovo. "I am of opinion," he said, "tbat Trom thc therapeutical standpoint, radium has a much higher mission and a far greater sphere of usefulaess before it. Its value and utility jonsist in its specific action „in regard to special diseases; that is to say its elective action, tho radiations haviug a special action on some dis ; eased cells, which is perfectly different from its action' on normal cells. "The radiations, in fact, aro able io cure some diseased portions without further irritating or inflaming them if the doses are rightly administered. In other wfirds, ' certain diseased cells can be mo'djfied and deviated from thoir niorbi^T,- process and transformed toward&^recbvery. ' ' DEMONSTRATION BY* PHOTOGRAPH. 7. By means of a. remarkable series of parallel photographs, , ; Dr. Uickham showed how external' cancerous growths had been remov^S by the Jcslrattivc action o£ rafllUtu. Ono was a case of a man ■wiffi'i'caneer of large dimensions on the [temple. The treatment was rather prolonged, lasting over a year, but, at^'ihe second photograph showed, the m'an had been so changed by thc troattaeut that it was difficult to recogndse^him as tho samo person. The' Bkiri'j_had healed, and, at the samo tiuiy, .tjho goneral health of tho patiqnt^had improved, and there had beeiino relapse. This was one of. the illustrations of the destructive .actidn of radium, but Dr. Wickham -*s lecture was -more concerned with wha£ h& called its elective action, andKhe Tstafed that the morbid growths '-jvhich could be modified or deviated in this way were — EccAia, tumors, lesions, aud cancers. , Dr. Wickham showed somo photographs illustrating the effect of the elective action of radium on deep cancers. Cue, in which a cure had been offected, was a malignant cancer which had destroyed a portion of the skin oh the sufferer's face, to such an extent that the nostril had been severed from the cheek. In another caso the treatment adopted w.-is what tho lecturer called '.'cross' fiTe," thc apparatus' being placed oa.both sides of tho diseaso! part. "After five months' treatment thoro were", as the second photograph [showed, still more infieeted glands,, ; but obvious impr'ove*2ie*nt had seit in, ■ 1.