FRENCH RADIOLOGIST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 23, 23 December 1932, Page 7

FRENCH RADIOLOGIST.

LIFELONG MARTYRDOM. PARIS, Dec. 22. His lifelong martyrdom in the cause of science is among the subjects of tributes paid to the memory of the great French radiologist, M. George Sharet, who died while studying to the last the effects of disease in Iris own flesh contracted by a radium burn during war-time. He underwent many operations, but continued his work of radium research, to which his sufferings seemed only a further incentive. After one of the severest operations President Doumer visited the hospital and pinned the cross of the Legion of Honour on his breast.

CONTROL OVER USE OF RADIUM. SPECIAL TRAINING NEEDED. Conjuring up more mysteriously gruesome possibilities than are to be encountered in any crime “thriller,” Lord Lee, of Faroham, chairman of the National Radium Commission, told the British Institute of Radiology that radium was a dangerous poison—2o times stronger than tetanus toxin, which was the deadliest now known. “I cite terrible facts,” he said, “in order to emphasise the vital necessity for public control of its use.” An amount equal to a pinch of salt, he said, would be sufficient to murder a neighbour sleeping on tho other side of the wall of a semi-detached house, without arousing suspicion. Lord Leo condemned tho AVestminster Hospital’s experiment in radiotherapy as disastrous. “Frankly,” he said, “I don’t know whether it can cure cancer or other malignant disease. although certainly it can relieve pain if properly applied. Nevertheless, no surgeon is competent to practise radiotherapy without intensive special training. Scientists are often like sportsmen—more interested in the gun than in the quarry—and the pursuit of science may become too costly in terms of human life.” The public, lie declared, should beware of radio-active waters and similar preparations. Lord Lee then recalled the New Jersey “ dial painters’ ” case involving the deaths of many girls who had absorbed infinitesimal quantities of radium while painting tho luminous dials of watches. This absorption had resulted in an internal bombardment by “alpha” particles—the most potent destructive agent known to science—which would continue within their skeletons for at least 1700 years. The sufferers had emitted radiations which were visible during life, one learning her fate when she saw a phosphorescent reflection of herself in a mirror.