CHEAPER RADIUM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18991, 16 April 1936, Page 14

CHEAPER RADIUM

CANADIAN DISCOVERY PRICK MORE THAN HALVED LONDON, March 4. lladium is becoming cheaper. Its value in uses by doctors and in hospitals will be enormously increased. Three and a half years ago radium cost £14,000 a gramme. Since then the price has steadny lallen until it is now ibOiO a gramme. This has been due. to the discovery 01 radium-bearing ore in Canada, and the policy of the refiners in forcing down the price. Until the Canadian radium came on the market there was a practical monopoly held by the Belgian Congo, where the largest supplies still come from.

A sufficient amount of radium from Canada is now available in London to meet immediate needs, and production is to be increased this year. The radium-bearing ore is found at Great Bear Lake, in the north-west territories, only a few miles from the Arctic Circle. * From there it is taken t>y air, or carried down the trails, according to the season, nearly 1000 miles to Edmonton, Alberta. Then it is taken by train acrosi Canada to the radium refining plant vt Port Hope, Ontario. Aiter refining, the radium is packed in sealed glass tubes, each containing ICO milligrammes or less. A second glass tube is placed outside the first. and, the whole is sealed in an inchthick lead cylinder. In" London, before distribution, the radium is kept in a specially constructed two-ton lead safe, and is carried in brass cylinders, which keep the worker's hands five inches away from the container. At a laboratory in Hatton Garden the radium is mounted in iridio-platinum needles by expert chemists, and is (hen distributed to hospitals and doctors. It is widely used in the treatment of cancer.

Up till now the demand for radiuir has always equalled the supply, and with the experiments now being carried out with "bombs," containing as much as five grammes in one unit, the demand is likely to increase greatly. ■ In 1934 it was estimated that thenwas about 7CO grammes of refined radium in the whole world. Of this amount only 42. grammes was.in England. Since then, with the production of Canada added to that of the Congo, the quantity in England has nearly doubled, and is 'Valued at about £600,000.