DANGEROUS RADIUM

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 399, 7 December 1932, Page 6

DANGEROUS RADIUM

WORLD'S RAREST ELEMENT BOTH CURSE AND BLESSING. Radium, that rare element which has opened a new world to the experimentaticn of scientific men, so far has been a death trap as well as a blessing to the human race. While, on the one hand, it has expanded greatly the field of science and has given promise of ultimate victory over ihe drcad disease of cancer, on the ot.hvr hand it and its nroducts have

taken a heavy toll of lives. Five "radium giris" of New Jersey, poisoned by luminous radium paint while working in the plant of a great corporation engaged in producing watch dials and other similar products, sued the corporation for 1,250,000 dollars. The suit was filed in 1928, and later the five were awarded cash settlements and annuities and provided with expert attention. Some of the five have died and the others are waiting for death. In the last three years approximately a score of persons have died in the United States as the result of radium poisoning ,-ontracted in factories which use iuminous paint. Manufacturers, while 'still producing artieles in which radium products ara employed, are sparing no expense ,o deveiop methods for protecting their amployees from the dangers of poisoning. The handling of radium in the hospitals in, the treatment of cancer or other diseases is a perilous occup'ation. While radium is the best known ;:urative agent for cancer, it also may cause cancer if not handled proper- , iy. Extensive precautions are taken m the hospitals to protect operators and patients from burns. Nurses are protected by lead doors, thi*ee-quarters of an inch thiclc, while patients are being given radium treatments. In the Memorial Hospital in New York half a million dollars' worth of radium is employed in the treatment of cancer. This is said to be the greatest single isupply of radium in any hospital in the world. At that

mstitution n*any scientinc metnoas have been developea for handling the precious element in safety. One of the methods provides for the ahsorption of radium emanation in a gold tube. The tube then is cut into "seeds" 14-one-hundredthis of an inch long. The "seeds" lare perfectly harmless at the time the, operator cuts them from the gold tube, but two hours later they hecome dangerous. It is then that extra precautions are taken to prevent burns.