The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 5, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1216, 5 March 1914, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 5, 1914. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

“It a crying shame that radium cannot be obtained,” said a lamous London surgeon last month. “The State should assume control of the sources of radium in this country for the benefit of the 35,000 people who die annually of cancer within the United Kingdom,” The complaint of the doctors against the exploitation of the radium mines by “private enterprise” appears to be very well founded. Radium ore is found in Cornwall in sufficient supplies to meet the urgent needs of the British hospitals and the cost of production does not exceed a few shillings per milligramme. But a company controls the supply and it not only demands fabulous prices for the mineral but has contracted to sell a very large part of the output to German institutions. A considerable stock was held at the disposal of hospitals in Britain for over six mouths,” said the chairman of the company the other week, “but owing to delays on their part German buyers stepped in, purchasing the entire stock at higher prices than were offered by the hospitals here. The Germans also entered into contracts with the company for considerable quantities which will keep the works of the company busy for the best part of the current year.” The chairman added that the prices were fixed by the ordinary laws of supply and demand. What is really happening is that a few persons controlling the source of supply are making enormous profits by exploiting humanity’s need of radium and are keeping the prices at a level which puls the new treatment beyond the reach of tens of thousands of sufferers. The case for State ownership of the mines is overwhelming. The British Medical Journal of last mouth states that the present market price of pure radium bromide is given in some quotations as £2O per milligram, and the minimum figure is probably not less than £l6, which is at the rate of ,£750,000 per ounce for the radium element. The prohibitive price of radium, says the Journal, has drawn attention to possible substitutes. In a lecture delivered before the Berlin Medical Society, and reported in the Journal of December 13th, 1913, Professor Bumm ranked mesothorium and X-rays as equal with radium in therapeutic value. We believe that in Germany, to ensure a more prolonged activity for mesothorium, 25 per cent, radium is added to the commercial product. Between X-rays and radium the physical and therapeutic parallel is very close. It has been proved physically that there is no fundamental difference in character between the two radiations, except that gamma rays of radium penetrate more deeply ; their effect has been noted at a depth ten times as great as that of X-rays. The ionizing action of the radiations differs somewhat, but even in this respect the “harder” or more penetrating the X-ray (that is, the more highly exhausted the vacuum of the tube) the nearer the values approximate. The difference would entirely disappear if X-rays having the same penetrating power as gamma rays could be produced, but no tube yet constructed can give rays even approximating those of radium in “hardness.” X-ray technique, however, has as yet by no means reached perfection. Therapeutic results with X-rays are becoming less erratic, and the procedure less empirical. The tube itself is being continually re-shaped, and new metals tried as auticatbodes. Recently the London Times published an account of a new tube devised in America by Mr Coolidge. Ir is difficult to gather a proper idea of it from the few details at present available, but the claim is made for it that the quality or “hardness” j)f the ray, hitherto the most variable factor in ray production, is under complete control, and that by the use of tungsten for both cathode and anficathode, and by bringing into play within the tube ionic particles of a metallic nature, the radiation efficiency is greatly increased. It is more certain than ever, concludes the Journal, that, even if radium were easily aud cheaply obtainable, X-ray therapeutics would not bv any means be abandoned. The article we have quoted should be of interest to those who are endeavouring to found a Radium Institute tor the North Island,

At Tuesday’s meeting of the Mauawatu Couuty Council a motion was passed to the effect : “That this Council begs to call the attention of the Minister of Lands to the large area of Government land on the coast from Foxton northwards, which, if planted with trees, would become a most valuable Stale asset. Surrounded as it is by a large population and near easy means of transit, there would be a ready sale for all timber that could be grown. We therefore respectfully submit that immediate steps should be taken to resume such area as a necessary nursery, where, under similar conditions, young trees suitable to the climate and soil could be grown -for planting purposes on Crown lands.” We hope the Council will receive a favourable reply from the Government, and that the latter will take up the question of tree planting seriously, and also carry out experiments to bring this vast area of waste land into profitable cultivation.