NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20075, 12 October 1928, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

RADIUM AND CANCER

Although the, efficacy of radium as a treatment for cancer was discussed as long ago as 1913, its use achieved, in the early days, much less than had been hoped for and was in consequence discounted to some extent. The new claims which are being made arc based on new methods of using radium and on new methods of bringing radium into contact with the cancer cells, says the Times. What is called " the surgery of access " has bocoine as important as the proper piepaiation of the radium " needles." The object, briefly, is to surround tlio cancer with points of radium so that every pait receives a lethal dose. This is an operation demanding a very high degree of skill. The surgeon must know whero to place his tiny batteries so that the " cross tiro " from them may bo most effective, and he must know also how to roach the areas where the batteries are to be placed. Knowledge about the power of the needles and about tho periods during which they ought to bo employed is not less essential. Unhappily, knowledgo is not tho only requisite. Without radium itself nothing can be accomplished, and radium is lacking in quantities sufficient to meet existing needs. Almost every hospital is suffering from want of radium; tho study of tho treatment of cancer is being hindered by tho same want. As it happens radium is very nearly everlasting, so that a donation of radium to a hospital is a gift of which only the, interest can be spent. Tho capital remains intact at least during many centuries. Such a gift may easily bo the means, even todav, of saving lives which must otherwise have been lost. It will go on saving lives, day after day and year after year, even century after century.

AMERICA'S ARMAMKX'J'S. A declaration of his views on disarmament was made by Mr. Herbert Hoover in accepting nomination as the Republican candidate for the American Presidency. "There aro two cooperating factors in the maintenance of peace —the building of goodwill by wise and .sympathetic handling of international relations, and the adequate preparedness for defence. Wo must not, only be just; we must be respected," ho declared. "Our offer of treaties open to the signature of all, renouncing war as an instrument of national policy, proves that we have every desire to co-operate with other nations for peace. . . We have been and wo aio particularly desirous of furthering tlio limitation of armaments. Hut in th»> meantime wc know that in an armed world there is only one certain guarantee of freedom —and that is preparedness for defence. It is solely to defend ourselves, for the protection of our citizens, that we maintain armament. No cleyi'er evidenco of this can exist, than the unique fact, that wo have fewer men in army uniform today than wo have in police unitorms, and that wo maintain a standing invitation to the world that we are always ready to limit oar naval armament in proportion as the other naval nations will do likewise. Wo earnestly wish that tho burdens and dangers of armament upon every home in tho world might, bo lessened. But we must and shall maintain our naval defence and our merchant marine in the strength and efliciency which will yield to us at all times the primary assurance of liberty, that is, of national safety." "NATIONAL SECURITY." The speech had a sensational sequel in the action of Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, who wrote to the New York Times renouncing his life long Republican allegiance. Protesting that by "respected" Mr. Hoover meant feared" Dr. •Butler asked: "What sort of mind and nature is it, which can at this stage of the world's history deliberately find a basis for respect in forco rather than in justice? Is not tho just man; tho just nation, respected? Aro not Holland and Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark respected ? Surely tho repetition of this ancient and discarded doctrine will not be accepted by the masses of tho Republican Party or by the people." He recalls the recent proposals for naval construction "which affronted the intelligence of the moral sense not only of the American people but of tho entire world," and says that monster was slain by public opinion, hacked to pieces by the Houso of Representatives, and thrown by tho Senate upon the legislative garbage-heap. "That amazing proposal was made in the interest of 'national security,' meaning thereby swagger, and it rested upon precisely the principle which Mr. Hoover now enunciates and accepts," ho adds. "A whole host of Republicans dissent absolutely on this point and will mako that dissent manifest by every means in their power. When tho American peoplo pledge renunciation of war they mean what they say, and take it for granted that our fellow-nations mean what they say. W r e shall not support any policy which would at once enter upon a now and enlarged plan of naval construction under the guise of defending ourselves against some power which has only just taken a formal pledge not to attack us. The contradiction and tho hypocrisy of it all would be comic were they not so unspeakably tragic."