Radium and Cancer.

Otago Witness, Volume 06, Issue 2899, 6 October 1909, Page 76

Radium and Cancer.

No scourge of bhe human race oppresses it with such" nightmare apprehension as *ho disease of ' cancer, and surgeons and fhysicdan© grasp almost as eagerly as sufferers at any possibility of .emedy. The remedy which during the 'ast few years

has appeared to hold some possibilities of effectiveness has been radium, and in spite of , many disappointments some hopes are being I held out that this mysterious element may \ hold come prospects of alleviation, of cancer / through modification of the tissues which. j cancerous growths infiltrate. In the highly [ important statement which Dr Wickham

xta4e recently before his English colleague*

Io f the Royal Society of Medicine, he mii stanced several cases of true carcinoma of ; the breast which appear to have yielded ' to the new method of attacking the cancer j by means of a crossfire of filtered radium rays — the rays employed being tho highly penetrative .gamma rays. Even if future results do not confirm Dr TViekham's hope, t'vere seems no doubt that in some cases the application of the rays will make surgical operations more easy, that pain may bs considerably alleviated, and that possibly a return of cancer may be prevented. The chief thing needed foi future demonstration, and investigation at present is an abundant supply of radium, and Eh- Wickham, in speaking of the King's interest and efforts in the establishment of the English Radium Institute, also spoke of the desirability of obtaining if possible from English sources a further residue of tne metal.