RADIUM PERILS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 January 1933, Page 8

RADIUM PERILS

VER-NJ DEADLY POISON

EFFECT OF IMPROPER USE

LONDON, December 35

Terrible examples of' the results of the improper use of radium were given by Lord Lee of Fareliam when he delivered the fifteenth Silvanus Thompson Lefcure before the British institute of Radiology. Lord Lee has been chairman of the National Radium Commission since its foundation. . Lord Lee, who pleaded for national control of radium supplies, disclaimed any wish to appear unduly cautious or pessimistic. But he said' that the problem of radium as '■?. therapeutic agent was still ui the melting-pot. Save in a very restricted sense, no positive or confident assurance could be given that it could cure cancer and other malignant disease.

Dr Cramer’s researches, which suggested that the application of radium to a pre-cancerous area of skin delayed or even prevented malignancy, opened up a new vista of possible utility. But while there was doubt ■about the curative value of radium, the speaker said, there was none about its palliative effect and its power to relieve pain, on that ground, it cculu claim to bo of benefit to mankind. Its greatest foes were ignorance and over-confidence.

Lord Lee went on to record the conviction of the commisssion that “radium is far too dangerous a substance to be let loose upon mankind.” His conclusions were-that: Radium is the most lethal and dangerous of poisons, and that it should be prohibited froml importation or sale, except under special license. The world possesses 500 grammes of radium, worth £7,500,000. Of file 68 grammes, worth £1,000,000, in this country, less than one-third (21 grammes) is controlled by the National Comimssion. Under existing conditions, observed Lord Lee, the extreme costliness of radium was perhaps the public’s best safeguard. At £15,000 a gramme there was not much risk of its becoming a “best seller.” But if other sources <f supply develop—and already <‘ l rich ore had been found in Canada—and radium could be acquired cheaply by anyone, Government control would then be imperative for the protection of tlie community.

As an example of the- perils of carelessness in the use of radium, Loid Lee described the case of the New Jersey girls who, whilo painting luminous* watch dials with a preparation containing minute quantities of radium or mesothorium, pointed the brushes at intervals with their tongues. In many cases the consequences did not become apparent until more than four years after the girls had left their employment.

DEATH OF EIGHTEEN GIRLS. Meanwhile, however, the residual radium sulphate had become deposited in the girl’s bones, and the internal bombardment of Alpha particles—the most potent and destructive agent known to science, with a velocity of 12,000 to 18,000 miles a second—bad been proceeding ceaselessly, .and would continue within the skeletons of the victims for at least another 1700 years. Even the infinitesimal quantity ■of radium thus absorbed was sufficient to cause the sufferer to emit radiations which were visible during, life and long after death. It was said that one of the victims fiist became aware of her condition when she saw a phosphorescent reflection of herself in a mirror after dark. iSo powerful were these radiations that experiments conducted with a “Geiger counter”—a delicate form of galvanometer —on a quarter of an ounce of powdered bone, taken from one of the' skeletons five years after death, produced audible waves of sound described as a “continuous static-like shriek.” “How many girls perished as a result °f this careless use of radium is not accurately known,” said Lord T.ec, “but 18 have certainly died, and some 30 more are regarded as doomed.”