DEADLY RADIUM GAS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 23 July 1929, Page 5

DEADLY RADIUM GAS

HEALING, BUT DANGEROUS HANDLING PRECAUTIONS Radium deserves to be considered the most dangerous material in the world, for all that it is.'-ofte of the most useful in medicine. This is suggested, we are told in Dr. E. E. tree's "Week's Science" (New York) by a remarkable set of safety rules for its use and handling, promulgated and considered necessary by the Council on Physical Therapy of the American Medical Association. Many will be surprised to know the dangers of this healing substance. We read : "The recommended precautions include the confining of the radium in holes drilled' in thick lead blocks, these blocks to be then stored in a thick metal safe, kept at a safe distance from all rooms where people 'live or work. The tubes containing the actual radium should be handled, the council recommends, only with long-handled wooden tongs, not unlike the instrument* which entomologists sometimes use to pick up venomous insects. Whenever a physician handles radium in order to prepare it for ; pplication to a patient his body should be prelected behind a plate of solid iead at least an inch thick. Instead of radium itself use is now often \\< i-.le "f radium emai atimi. which is a. gas given off slowly by the radium, and /nieii ; Iso has radioactive properties. "One danger of this gas, die council reports, is that it can give rise to an

'active deposit' of solid, intensely radioactive material, like dust deposited by impure air. If the 'emanation' gas is breathed, this radioactive deposit may be made inside the lungs, often with dangerous results. Even for the hards of a hospital worker to come in contact with the gas may be dangerous, as the active deposit may be formed on the. skin where the powerful rays that it continues to emit may cause radio n ray burns, or even local growths like farcer. Because i f this danger it is recommended that those who handle this vcre/ni nis but curative 'emanation' wear rubber gloves, to prevent even a touch of the potent gas on their hands."