The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1909. THE FUTURE OF RADIUM.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2476, 15 April 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 1909. THE FUTURE OF RADIUM.

Recently wo drew attention to the proposed establishment of a Royal British Radium Institute, and the latest English mail enables its to give fuller particulars of the important work that is to he undertaken. The foundation : i the Institute has been made possible by a very handsome .donation made by Sir Ernest Cais.sels, and its work will Ue carried on, in all. probability, with the aid of the Imperial Cancer Reseat'?n Fund. Sir Ernest Cassel’s gift, mtpp ementccl by others, will place £4U,OCO • t the disposal ol those who will have

only carry on research work, but will also have a regular medical department for the eventual treatment of cases ir> which experimental work has shown the possibilities of a radium cure. The King has taken a very close interest in the movement and from the first has insisted that the poor as well as the rich should benefit from its operations, and those who are not in a position to pay will be treated free of charge. As (o the curative, effects of radium the public lias had in the past but a dim perception of its possibilities, and the firm ings of so eminent a surgeon as Sir Frederick Treves are, therefore, of very great interest. In a lecture at the London Hospital Sir Frederick, while advising the very greatest caution in respect to the potentialities of new remedies;, expressed the view that a great future was possibly before it in the domain of surgical therapeutics. He based this view on his own actual experience of patients whom he had seen and examined.

Sir Frederick gave remarkable instances of the efficacy of radium in removing external gTowths for which remedies had not previously been found. First of all, it has been proved capable of curing what is known as “the port wine stain.” Secondly, it can rid the patient of pigmented mole and the hairy mole.”

“Let me take the case of an infant with a growth the size of a gooseberry on the top of his head,” Sir Frederick Treves proceeded. “This was entirely cured by a comparatively (short application of radium. In another case a girl was suffering from an angioma on her eyelid, in size equal to a plum. It had been subjected to four operations, which proved of litlle use. By radium it was removed.”

Another most remarkable case mentioned by Sir Frederick was that of the young woman who had an angioma which covered the whole of one side of her face. Many operations were performed, without result; but under radium treatment she was cured. More sensational still was the case of a fibrous angioma, the size of a lien’s egg, on the arm of a boy. The skin was perfectly sound, and aftor four weeks radium treatment the growth was entirely dispersed. “That a solid mass of that magnitude should have entirely vanished in four weeks is marvellous,” was Sir Frederick Treves’ comment.

To sum up : of radium it may be said that it can cure every form of naevus. Again, a case of ulcer, of many years standing, was mentioned. It was treated by the X-rays and the Finsen Light, but both were unsuccessful. “A cure was, nevertheless,” said Sir Frederick, “'effected in two sittings with radium, each sitting lasting an hour. I lay stress on this ease because it is said that radium only acts by means of its X-rays, but here is an instance of a cure of a complaint which refused to yield to X-ravs.”

Here, he added, was enough on which to base belief in the utility of radium.