RADIUM FOR CANCER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11, 13 January 1914, Page 5

RADIUM FOR CANCER.

Hv Electric Telegraph—Copyright) Times— Sydney Sun Special Cables. London, January 11.

An important letter, signed by Sir Alfred Gould, and Doctors John Bland Sutton, John Murray, Thos. Kellock and Cornyus Berkley, surgeons at the Middlesex Hospital, has been published stating that they are surprised to read the communication to the Times on Thursday purporting to give results obtained at the hospital by the radium treatment of cancer patients. All the patients at this hospital re?eivcd for inoperable cancer are under the sole care of the honorary staff, upon whom rests the entire responsibility of the treatment adopted, and they desire to point out that the Times’ statement, which was made without communicating with those responsible for the treatment of these patients, does not correspond with the experience during 1912, when 319 patients were treated, 167 died, 67 discharged at their own request, and 85 remained. Last year 361 were treat'd. 178 died, 75 were discharged, and IS remained. Although the results from radium are most hopeful, they do not justify the statement that we have a cancer cure. The whole profession is anxious for a larger supply, md regrets that its scarcity and cost makes its genera! use impossible.