Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-01-30

Through experiments now being made by physicians and scientists an ether substance with radio active prop. critics, known to scientists as thorium, may take the place of radium as a therapeutic agent and come into com mon use for the treatment of tubercu- iosis and other human ills. Thorium is a rare metal, discovered in 1928 by Ber- xelius, and is found in certain sands in North Carolina, Brazil, Norway and Sweden. It costs $7 pound, while ra- diun costs S7,00o,O00 pound, with quotations constantly going up.
 During the last few years thorium has been used chiefly for producing the ineandescence in mantles used on gas burners, and it is only within recent period that physicians have been ex- perimenting with it in medical way.
 Dr. Samuel c. Tracy of New York recently contributed an article to the Medical Record in which he describes in detail some of the results of his ex- periments with the radio active prop critics of the metal. Photographic tests made by Dr. Tracy have demonstra ted that it contains the same quality of radio activity as radium, only in much lesser degree.
 With three broken mantles he was able to get a fairly good negative in a dark room with seventy-two hours ex- posture With oxide of thorium he ob- tained negative in forty eight hours, and with emanations of hot thorium oxide the same result was obtained in one hour 5..
 In It's application as medical agent the article says: s'The radio activity em- anatas from thorium in every form, whether In powder, solution, paste or ointment. The best results, however, are likely to be obtained from the gaseous emanations when used as an inhalation. This form of emanation may be obtained either by making & so- lution of the thorium nitrate or, better still, by heating the oxide in 8 glass receptacle. For external application Ghorium may be made into paste or 8 25 per cent ointment and used as an antiseptic in chronic skin diseases, par ticulariy those of parasitic origin.'
 Description is given in the article of experiments made and apparatus used by Dr. Soddy of London and Hugo Liber of Germany in the treatment of tuberculosis by thorium inhalations. The radio activity of thorium is many thousand times less than that of radi- nm, and 1t differs in other respects.
 Professor Ernest Rutherford of Mo Gill university, Montreal, says that sawhen theoRdum nitrate is changed into an oxide by heat 1t temporarily loses its radio activity, but when exposed to the air 1t soon regains it's activity. In four days it is one and half times more active, in twelve days two and a half times, and at the end of two weeks it reaches it's maximum radio activity, which is four times as great as was the original nitrate of thorium."
 The emanations from radium do not last as long as from thorium; there fore, together with it's cheapness, it is looked on as an important element in the treatment of certain diseases if ex- periments prove that its potency is as great as scientists and physicians hope.
 Tests already made have demonstrat- ed that thorium is as inimical to germ life as radium, and experiments with grape juice and other substances of ,similar nature show that it prevents fermentation.
 Professor Rutherford was among the nrst to investigate the properties of Fhorium. His researches have done Nanra raarbasaa than has heen effected