RADIUM IN WAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7947, 27 February 1904, Page 4

RADIUM IN WAR.

ARSENALS MAY-BE BLOWN UP A GREAT DISTANCE OFF. Mr Thomas Alvsu Edison, th© American inventor, has recently expressed the opinion that the development of radium will prove to be the most important scientific feature in the history of 1904. M. Curie, whose wife discovered the wonderful iiew substance, has also been giving his views on the subject of radium's future. In the course of an article in the " New York World," he. predicts, that its great field will be the domain of medicine rather than -warfare and commerce. "A physician," he Bays, "with a tenth of a gramme of radium, could receive an unlimited number of patients, and effect cure after cure in cases of lupus, and, above all, of cancerous affections. " Radium might Jje 'a factor in warfare in the way of producing explosions in a magazine, causing the disappearance of the ship and the entire ship's company. "But radium is dangerous. rather against individuals than objects. A- tenth of a gramme left contiguous to- a person is capable of producing complete paralysis. For this reason it might prove a dangerous medium in causing crime which, would defy detection if it ever became as easily obtained as other chemicals. It is also dangerous to bring a tenth of "a gramme into contact with a highly-inducted electric battery, because an immediate explosion is certain. [ "At first we hoped that the blind would be benefited by it, for a particle of radium,* ; enclosed in a box, placed on the forehead, conveys a sensation of light: to the eye. Bufc we found it did not enable, the blind person, to distinguish objects. So far we have only used radium salts, and in- minute quantities, yet the remarkable results produced show that the possibilities *)f tie pure product are inestimable. " Before doing what. Professor Gustaye Lebon has predicted — the blowing up of magazines, forts and arsenals in the enemy's country by, using a small tube of radium— we shall have to find the requisite amount of pure radium. Its poteniiafity is wonderful,, and I can even conceive a radium cannon projecting electric shocks great distances with deadly effecU'