RADIUM TREATMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 October 1921, Page 5

RADIUM TREATMENT.

“PROVED A FAILURE.” DISCARDED FOR X RAYS. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, October 3. “Radium has proved a failure,” sai<J Sir Thomas Parkinson, a leading London physician, who arrived by the Remuera. “It has dropped out almost entirely. Many of the leading surgeons have now discarded it altogether as an agent in surgery. In a large clinic with which I am associated we -have given it up. We only use it where patients insist upon it. We do it entirely upon their own responsibility. There has been no other agent that Inis been brought more into quackery. What can be done with radium can be done infinitely better with X rays.

“Quite recently at the West London hospital they succeeded in establishing an advanced X-ray that has a selective property and will attack malignant disease. The drift in London is to discard radium and concentrate on X rays. The X rays have stood the test. Although many cases are unsuccessful, we can claim many remarkable cures. “I believe the money now spent on any form of original work should be concentrated on advancing the X ray, more especially the new treatment brought in by an Austrian. I think it very unwise indeed to spend large sums in attempting advanced treatment with radium ond very wrong that the public should get a false impression of its properties and actions. Not only is it an ineffective remedy in most cases, but it is positively dangerous, the results produced by burning aggravating rather than improving disease.”