The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1903-08-11
RADIUM AND ITS USES.
New Element Considered SUI
perior to the x Rays.
EFFECTIVE IN CURING CANCER.

Fraction Of a Grain said to Have
Been Used Successfully In Treat
ment Of Disease Which Affected the
N~ose-MIny Cure the Esind-Eas
Powerful Lighting Property and
Enormous Energy.
A writer in the London Times has an
article dealing with the practical uses
to which radium can and may be put.
He laments the fact that there is no !.
sign that the chemical industry in Eng
land has yet awakened to these posi-
bilities. He says: "In Germany ana
France radium is successfully produced
on a manufacturing scale. The de-
mand at $4,000 an ounce is far IN ex-
cess of the supply, whereas in England
It is neither produced nor Is Its manu-
facture attempted.
.Physicists and doctors complain of
the im%possibility of regulating the
character of X rays so as to repeat
with certainty any desired effect. Ra-
dunn gives a beautifully consistent n
uniform supply of rays. Instead OF the
cumbrous focus tube, nearly as large
as a football, and the manifold expen-
sive items of the x ray outfit a glass
tube, somewhat smaller than q tooth
pick and containing from one-tenth to
one-ifth of a grain of radium, has al
ready been successfully employed IN
cases Of cancer, since the little tube can
be inserted in cavities no larger than
the nostril.
'.In q great many cases in which 1t
was impossible to use the \ rays ra-
dunn has been readily employed, as IS
shown by the following case at Charlng
Cross hospital. A rodent cancer of the
nose which had required after an oper-
alton and had been unsuccessfully
treated by the X rays was subjected to
a short exposure of radium. -Four ex-
posures, aggregating about an hour,
were given at intervals of a few days.
In three weeks the diseased part was
healing well, and in six weeks, after
two further exposures, the cancer dis
appeared completely without leaving
any visible scar. Similar success In
treating an otherwise incurable cancer
was reported from Vienna.
.The fact that radium incloscd in a
lead box an inch thick brought near a
person in a dark room causes the same
feeling as a flash of light on the retina,
even when the eyelids are tightly
closed. and that the aln sensation IS
experienced by the blind is attracting
the serious attention Of medical men,
and the successful treatment of many
other diseases than ANGER may be con-
fidently expected in the near future.
'"The great POLLEN of the application
of radium for Illuminating purposes be-
longs to another class-that is, it would
be perfectly practicable if the supply OF
than at present. A small fraction OF
an ounce of radium properly employed
would probably prove to be a good
light sufficient for several rooms, which
at any rate during the present century
need never require renewal.
"Other conceivable applications of IA
dunn to supply other forms Of energy
besides light belong to still another
class, so far as can be seen at present
and will only become applicable if thu
available supply Of radium is increased
beyond what seems just now possible
for it cannot be expected that such
very radioactive element will ever be
come very abundant. 1t is not to be ex
pected that a much more abundan
source than %pitchblende, which proba
bly, does not contain more than 11O,OO'
= a~4 - q -. l:,,,, r0t11 I'M foIIr6 HE
"The most striking fact of radio &C
tivity is it's unalterability. Radiun
contains an immense reservoir of en-
ergy sufficient to maintain it's contin
uous powerful radiations for many Ger
turtles, but all attempts to increase 1t
activity or make it supply it's energ
at a faster rate have signally failed. !
it is ever possible to accomplish thi
and to concentrate the output of enel
gy which Is now being dissipated owe
several centuries into the space of
few days or weeks, then there is nc
the least doubt that an ounce wOul
suffice to drive a fifty horse power mt
tor around the world at the rate of thil
ty miles an hour.
"The possibility of being able in til
future to control and store the energ
of radium and to liberate it for use
required at any desired rate is the mos
interesting feature of radio activity {
the present time. II 1t were ever poss
BILE to do this with radium it would a
most certainly be SO for uranium an
thorium, which car be produced by tt
ton and probably contain no less store
energy than radium, but evolve It at
vastly slower rate.
"Our fathers busted themselves
speeulating as to what would becon
of us when the worlds coal supply VI
exhausted. A single step of science
all that is needed for that problem