RADIUM FAMINE THREATENED.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144084, 1 May 1913, Page 6

RADIUM FAMINE THREATENED.

JAPAN BIDS FOR ALL IN THE ENGLISH MARKET.

While the great London hospitals which employ .radium for the treatment of cancer and other diseases are making pitiful appeals for adequate supplies of the beneficent element, the country is now threatened with the loss of practically all the available radium not 'actually in constant use.

These supplies consist of 500 milligrammes, now lying idle in a London safe. Japan is now applying for this radium for purposes undisclosed. Unless someone comes forward with tho money to purchase ft there is general apprehension that,tho radium, with an additional 300 milligrammes that will bo ready shortly, will go abroad. Ail that is wanted is a sum* of between £BOOO and £IO,OOO. Dr. Lazarus-Barlow, the director of, tire Cancer Research Laboratories of the Middlesex Hospital, speaking to an interviewer, said: — “The great majority of our unfortunate patients have to die, simply because we do not possess sufficient radium to relieve their pain, if not, in a good proportion of oases, to effect a probable cure. “Owing to the small amount of radium at our disposal, our Energies on behalf of our patient's are painfully restricted. On the other hand, it would be difficult to overstate the . benefit that would be derived by many suffering from pain and inoperable cancer if 500 milligrammes were forthcoming. But I believe wo could easily use 1000 milligrammes every hour of the twentyfour. All we need is tho radium, or the money to purchase it, without delay. ‘The radium ought certainly not to bo allowed to leave the country. The Government might even buy' it and loan it to tho hospitals. “As a pure investment, it would be a security that virtually does not depreciate, "because more than one thousand years would elapse before its powers "fell to 50 per cent, of the original.”

The 500 milligrammes referred to are at the present moment lying in the safe of the British Radium Corporation.

“The radium.is not actually purchased yet by Japan,” said_ one ot tho directors, ‘‘and if any Britjsh committee is formed to obtain it, as well as ftirther supplies, for hospital use, I am Sure the directors would be only tod delighted to grant every possible facility.

“We have been selling our radium at £2O a milligramme/ hut if it wore designed for hospital purposes I, have no doubt a substantial reduction would be made.”