Notes

Abstract

A FEW days ago (October 2) the daily Press published sensational paragraphs to the effect that Sir Frederick Treves had announced, at the Radium Institute, “a complete revolution in the future of radium.” When analysed, the “revolution” amounts to little more than a statement that the Radium Institute has begun to collect radium emanation in sealed glass tubes, and to issue the tubes to doctors for the treatment of their patients. It was assumed by the literary young men who write the leaders and notes in the daily papers that radium emanation had just been discovered instead of being known and named for ten years or more, so they let their enthusiasm overstep the bounds of their knowledge. Even the method referred to by Sir F. Treves is not new; it was published in The Lancet on December 11, 1909, p. 1742 (“On the Use of Radium for Local Application within the Body,” by Dr. Alfred C. Jordan), and I this paper is quoted and fully abstracted by Dr. Dawson Turner in his book on “Radium: its Physics and Therapeutics” (Baillière, Tindall and Cox, 1911), pp. 27 and 28. In The Lancet the glass tube containing the emanation was directed to be enclosed in a tube of lead “compo” of 1 mm. thickness, and this in its turn in a length of rubber tubing. Of course, these tubes must be used at once, for the emanation decays to one-half its initial strength in three and a half days. A tube of initial strength equal to 10 mg. of radium may be placed in contact with a tumour, and left to “decay” there. It will be understood that emanation used in this way (in sealed tubes surrounded by 1 mm. of lead) depends for its action on its γ rays and its hardest β rays, the glass stopping all the a radiation, while the lead absorbs most of the β rays. Very different is the action of free radium emanation, as in radio-active waters. In the latter case the α particles are able to bombard the tissues at close quarters; the action of the β and γ radiation then becomes negligible, possessing no more than one-hundredth part of the energy of the a radiation. Great care must be used in applying a radiation to the tissues, for the destructive action is most pronounced. Good results have been obtained with radium in many diseases, but the hopes of the public as well as the medical profession are centred round the treatment of cancer. Even in this dreaded disease many favourable results have been reported both with radium and with the Rontgen rays, but unfortunately disappointments are far more frequent than cures.