RADIUM WATER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 22, 19 March 1915, Page 3 (Supplement)

RADIUM WATER.

With the discovery of tiie marvellous physical properties of radium, it seemed to be expected by the general public, somewhat irrationally, that its medical properties would be equally marvellous. The consequence litis been that a number of hasty claims on behalf of the curative properties of radium have been made which have been subsequently abandoned, and-there is now some danger that the public, finding itself repeatedly misled, will prove itself sceptical of results which have undoubtedly been achieved. But for some time work of a perfectly sane, sober, scientific nature has been carried out by the Radium Institute of London, and its report, Institute of London, and its report, published in the ''British Medical Journal," contains results of a sufficiently startling, if not sensational, character. The apparatus employed in treating different diseases is of various types, consisting of flat varnished applicators, rectangular, square, and circular; the superficial area ranging from 0.7 square centimetres to 28 square centimetres 1 . They are made in three strengths; full strength containing an amount ot radium sulphate equivalent to 10 milligrammes of radium bromide to each square centimetre, and half-strength and quarter-strength. The smallest applicator contains 7 milligrammes and the largest 150 milligrammes. Capillary glas.- tubes filled with radium sulphate closely packed are used for insertion into openings in the body, in cases where the diseased area could not be reached in any other way; their length varies from 2 to 4 centimetres and their diameters from 0.2 to 0.3 centimetre. The radium emanation is sometimes' collected in glass tubes or metal containers, and used with appropriate screens, exactly as the radium stilts are used, due regard being paid to the gradual tall in radio-activity resulting from the decay of the emanation. It is also dissolved in distilled water or a weak saline solution and administered by drinking or injection. The radium water !s prepared by bubbling radium emanation through distilled water, which is then slowly drawn off in bottles. The bottles are sealed and carefully packed for delivery to all parts of the kingdom. The apparatus at the Institute is designed to give solutions with an activity from 1 to 2 millicuries per litre, an activity much greater than the best of the radioactive water from natural sources. As a drink radium water would prove an expensive luxury, since a Very moderate sized bottle costs two and t half dollars. The present writer, on being asked to sample the radium water did so I of or* learning its cost, and afterwards estimated that he had drunk about a dollar's worth. Radium wt.ter ha- the flat taste oii<? associates with distilled water, together with a ctrious faint, salty asvuir, and its effect, so far as the writer s experience goes, is to render one extremely slcepv for the rest of the day. For these reasons alone it is not probable that radium water will ever rival a John Collins or any similar preparation as a beverage, even for millionaires. Considered as a medicine one "dose" is of no use. It has to be taken continuously for some tune, and the patient who starts taking radium water u-uallv has to consume about one hundred dollars' worth before its- beneficial effects are perceived. -Scientific American.''