RADIUM FOR AUCKLAND

Southland Times, Issue 19720, 28 November 1925, Page 4

RADIUM FOR AUCKLAND

FOUR COSTLY GRAINS. REPRESENT £5OOO. “There is no doubt that radium is very much used in all the principal hospitals at Home, in fact no hospital is considered thoroughly equipped unless it has a complete radium apparatus,” said Dr. C. E. Maguire, medical superintendent of the Auckland Hospital, who returned by the Mahana from a most interesting trip to the Old Country. Dr. Maguire, who looks very well after his seven months travelling has inspected a number of the leading hospitals, and is embodying the information he gained in a comprehensive report to the Auckland Hospital Board. One of the doctor’s principal commissions when abroad was to purchase on behalf of the board a supply of radium. He secured four grains, and that cost £5OOO. The safes for the proper keeping of the radium have to be prepared before it is sent out from London, and the apparatus is now on the way, and it is hoped to have the radium here about the beginning of the year. Dr. Maguire’s remark mentioned above was in answer to a reporter’s query as to the present standing of radium, the doctor being reminded of some of the criticisms of a noted specialist from the Old Country a few years back. Dr. Maguire said there was no doubt about the standing of radium in the hospital world at Home, and his investigations convinced him that the thing was only in its commencement. The superintendent of the Radium Institute, who was making a tour of the world, hoped to be in Auckland in March, and would be able to advise the board fully as to what steps should be taken to develop radium treatment. “Radium is one of the great means we have to-day of alleviating conditions in cancer, and it is also used in many other diseases,” said Dr. Maguire. “The mere fact that sometime ago in Auckland somebody discounted radium in the treatment of disease does not affect the matter in the slightest; such discounting criticism has been shown to be quite erroneous, and as I say all the modern hospitals have their radium equipment, and use it extensively. There is no doubt that radium has a great future before it.” As the apparatus for using radium has to be obtained before the radium itself can be stored Dr. Maguire did not bring it with him, but he has on board the Mahana other equipment the board asked him to purchase for the purpose of keeping the bacteriological laboratories of the Auckland Hospital up-to-date.