EXPERIMENTS WITH RADIUM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12282, 8 July 1914, Page 8

EXPERIMENTS WITH RADIUM.

Dr Robert Abbe, who is recognised as bile of America's leading authorities on the use of radium 111 the treatment of cancer (says the New York correspondent oi the London "Daily Telegraph"), has made the remarkable statement that the experiments conducted under his supervision had convinced him that, the central theory of radium's action, under which he had proceeded for the past eleven years, was entirely wrong. He explained to the meeting of members of the Radium Institute of America, held in 'New York, that recent experiments coilducted by Dr Alexis Carrel, of the .Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, demonstrated that the Beta rays of radium, which had heretofore been considered dangerous, aud had been kept ■ away from contact with the patient, as much as possible, have an effect upon cancer that is more healing than that of the Gamma rays, now so generally relied . upon This discovery, declared Dr Abbe, would probably cause surgeons, throughout the world radically to change methods of applying radium to sufferers from cancer. The experiments. Dr Abbe said, wen- only just beginning, but already lie had established beyond doubt that the lieta rays from radium, which everyone had 1 nought to be of little or no value, actually retarded the cancerous growths, whereas the Gamma rays. which had heretofore been thought so dependable, proved practically ineffectual in discouraging the growth of diseased tissue Dr A';be said he could not predict where the pre.-em experiments would lead to, but he would say thai in five years' time the world would know vastly more- about radian) than it did to-day.