RADIUM

Otago Witness, Issue 3526, 11 October 1921, Page 44

RADIUM

•STA'I KMKNT BY j.KADIND I’ll VSK ’IA X. .U'(’Kl,A.\l), October 3 ••Radium lias proved a failure." said Sir 'lhoirw.- Parkinson. a leading bond.a, physician, who arrived by t!;c Remuora. "Ft has dropped will iibo-h entirely. sii: ;( of ice hading' surgeons lime now disco ideil if altogether as u:i agent in surgery. In tne large clinic with which 1 am associated we have given it up. \Y, use it only where patients insist upon it. We do it entirely upon their responsibility. There has been no other agent that lias been brought, more into quackery. What can be done with radium can be done infinitely better with X-rays. Quite recently at a West London hospital they suecedcd in establishing that any aovanced X-ray lias a selective property which.will attack a malignant disease. The flritt m London i-s to discard radium and concentrate on X-rays. X-rays has stood the test. Although many cases are unsuccessful. we can claim many remarkable cures. 1 believe that the money now spent on any form of original work should be concentrated on advancing X-rays, more especially the new treatment,- brought in by an Austrian, 1 think. It is very unwise, indeed, to spend large sums in attempting advanced treatment with radium, and very wrong that the public should get a false impression as to its properties and actions. Not only is it an ineffective remedy in most cases, but positively dangerous, tlie results produced bv burning aggravating rather than improving disease.”" REPLY TO SIR THOMAS PARKINSON. -1 he statements attributed to Sir Thomas Parkinson in condemnation of the use of radium as an agent in surgery are strongly criticised by Dr L. K. Barnett, chairman of the Radium Committee of the Dunedin Hospital, and Dr P. D. Cameron, officer in charge of the radium and X-ray department. r l hey assert that the opinions expressed by Sir Thomas Parkinson are not borne out by the recent, reports of Radium Institutes in all parts of the world, including London. Radium appears to have succeeded in improving or curing an increasingly large number of cases which are impossible or very difficult to treat bv any other means. Numbers of distinguished surgeons have reported that they have abandoned operations on cancers in regions difficult of access, because they find that radium, though not by any means a certain cure, gives belter _ proportionate results. Cancer J m certain situations, in the neck of the uterus, lymphosarcoma and rodent ulcers in any situation, birthmarks and keloid scars, to quote a few examples, are all considered by competent authorities as eminently suitable for radium treatment. Sir Thomas Parkinson Is not recognised as an authority on the subject of radium or X-rays, and pis Barnet t and Cameron emphatically deny his statement that radium has proved a failure, and has dropped almost entirely out or use in London. Moreover, they say that his reckless advocacy of the new modification of X-ray technique emanating from Erlangen, in Bavaria, is, to say tile least of it, unwise, as the method at present is on trial -only. They think it may interest Sir Thomas Parkinson to know that one of our own New Zealand graduates, Dr Colin Anoerson, of Hawke's Bay, is at present in Bavaria studying the Erlangen system of the use of X-rays on behalf of the Manchester Institute of Radiology, to which he :s attached. The medical profession is regarding with intense interest, this new experimental work with X-rays of enormous penetrating power, but even if it should prove as successful as its discoverers anticipate, there will still be a wide field for the use of radium. Prominent surgeons in other centres have expressed opinions somewhat similar to those given above by Drs Burnett and Cameron. VIEWS OE LONDON SPECIALISTS. LONDON, October 6. With reference to the interview with Sir Thomas Parkinson at Auckland, in which he is alleged to have declared that radium had proved a failure, Professor W. S. Lazarus-Barlow, director of the Cancer Research Laboratories at Middlesex Hospital, as a result of the continuous use of radium in sixteen cases, declares: 1 I was never more confident that it is one of the greatest agents in the treatment of disease ever discovered. It has effected most remarkable results in cancer cases, though it has been known for only twenty years, whereas the knowledge of surgery has been growing with the ages ; yet who will declare that every surgical operation is successful? I believe that we are only on the threshold of the benefits which will accrue from radium.” Professor Lazarus-Barlow has recently been conducting experiments with radium, through which he has made important extensions in the knowledge of its use. He declares that more research is wanted. The past failures were not the fault of radium, but of the operators. Sir William Milligan, of Manchester Radium Institute, expressed the opinion that Sir Thomas Parkinson’s knowledge of radium was not extensive. 'The evidence provided through the London and Manchester Radium Institutes was quite contrary to Sir Thomas Parkinson’s experiences. Apparently he was not acquainted with foreign" literature, which showed that distinguished Continental surgeons had entirely discarded cutting in favour of radium treatment.