FILTERED RAYS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11685, 24 November 1923, Page 6

FILTERED RAYS

RADIATION TECHNIC “MORE THAN £IO,OOO "WORTH OF RELIEF.” SAFEGUARDS AND SKILL. “Although radium is not a panacea in the treatment of such cases (cancer), you can safely assure the public that, by giving, they will give more than £IO,OOO worth of relief to the numerous unfortunate sufferers from this disease in tin's district.”—Dr. W. E. Herbert, in support of the campaign for £IO,OOO (net) of public subscriptions for establishing a radium department at Wellington Hospital. A Brussels cablegram received during the week, referring to the International Congress for lighting Canoer, has stressed the need of caution in the use of X-rays. All this is perfectly well known to the medical men behind the Radiation (Radium) Appeal campaign. Not only X-rays, hut also radium must be used; with caution. In some applications they require a specialist; in some applications ordinary medical knowledge is sufficient. The recentlypublished report of the medical superintendent of the hospital is explicit in this point. Dr. James T. Case, an American authority who is generally accepted, writes: “Every X-ray tube gives off a mixture of X-rays of varying penetration. In tho beam of rays leaving the tube there are soft (or slightly penetrating) as well as hard (or deeply penetrating) rays. It is the soft rays which are likely to damage the skin, and since they are produced even in greater abundance than the highly penetrating radiation, some means must he employed to exclude them. For this purpose the principle of ‘filtration* was introduced. This consists of the interposition .between the tube and the patient of some substance slightly obstructive to the passage of the rays, by wh'ioh the softer rays are effectually barred, while the passage of the hard penetrating rays, desired for the treatment of the tumour, is not at all hindered.

“Leather was first employed for this purpose; later, thin sheets of aluminium. Gradually experience indicated the desirability of restricting the radiation to the use of the very penetrating rays. In 1915 the writer, following the work of Bessauer, began the employment of zinc and copper filters, half a millimetre in thickness; and utilised for the production of the hard X-rays a specially constructed X-ray Apparatus of high voltage capacity.” The principle of filtration has enabled very high voltages to he used, so as to give deeply penetrating rays that do the work they are wanted to do, and don’t do what they are not wanted to do. But,, of course, high skill oit-fhe part of the practitioner is required in certain cases.

The Radium (Radiation) Appeal is for £IO,OOO (net) with which (plus Government subsidy) it is hoped to establish at Wellington Hospital a radium department, where radiation treatment (Radium and X-rays) will he carried on, and from which radium emanation may he distributed; over a wide area pt country. The appeal is backed by the British Medical Association. The appeal district is the middle belt of the North Island, hounded on the north by a line from New Plymouth to Napier via Taumarunui (inclusive of these towns), on the south by the southern boundaries of Marlborough and Nelson provinces. The secretary of the general committee is Mr G. Mitchell, whose office is in the Exchange Buildings, Dominion avenue, off Lambton quay. Subscriptions may be sent to Mr Mitchell or to the Mayor of Wellington, and country subscribers have the alternative course of paying to any local accredited agency.