The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-03-31
IN SarsapariHa
NA~E Just ask your doctor all about
|A - ~ W. ev II. He will tell you cit is the
best blood medicine you can
81 possibly buy" i 3Sn A}ygmc..
ABOUT RADIUM.

The rapidly growing belief in the
cure-all properties of radium is the
basis of an article on that mysterious
metal, published in March Success,
in which the writer presents some
telling facts concerning what is actu-
ally known of its wonderful proper
ties and what they are popularity sup
posed to be under the fostering of fire.
quent published announcements of
wonderful cures of cancer and con-
sumption. The writer, Mr.. Cleve-
land Moffett, went to Paris especially
to study radium and was a pupil of
M. and Nine. Curie. He says in
part:
Oddly enough, these failures to
make good" seem only to stimulate
our willingness to believe. We are
like gamblers who reason that the red
must turn up soon, and each new
message from the laboratory any
body's laboratory, finds cohort Of
Jealous believers, especially if it be a
message of healing to the sorely
afflicted There are the sadness and
the wickedness of it, for sufferers by
tens of thousands put vain trust in
these hasty announcements. these de-
captions of half knowledge, and be-
lieve that now, at length, they are 10
be rid of their ills. Investigation
leads to disappointment there is need
OF more experiments; there is lack of
radium, and anyhow the thing is
doubtful. Radium may cure consump-
ton, some day, or it may not; it GER
tainly will not now, and the man who
has the disease wants to be cured
now, or let alone.
l speak thus positively about the
cure of consumption by radlum be-
cause L know of at least one shrewd
specul ator in human misery who pro-
poses soon to start sort of radium
consumption farm where he will ad-
vertise to do wonders for affected
lungs by means of radioactive air.
and-handsome fees. No doubt, if
he sets up his establishment in Colo
RADIO or the Adirondacks, his patients
may be benefited, with the radium
or without it. Eventually the radium
may do good, for the theory may
prove sound, but the people should
know that thus far there is an entire
lack of evidence from reputable physi-
clans to show that radium has actually
cured cases of consumption. Years
must pass before we can have any GER.
tain knowledge on the subject. There
must be a massing OF evidence from
many hospitals, and time to take note
of relapses. Think what slow, in
sidious disease consumption is Re-
member the Koch consumption cure
which did not cure! Remember what
the X'rays were to do for consumption,
but did not do Even should it ulti-
mately be shown that consumption
may be cured by the use of radio
active air, there till remains the prob
lem of finding a sufficient supply of
N"NASAH w OO9eON tiCcS piCClOus
critics upon the air. Great quantities
Of this air would be needed, think
of the army of consumptives-and
there is very little radium in the
world. only an ounce or so of the
highly purified product, and that is
enormously expensive.
The price of radium has been stead.
lily advancing because the Austrian
government refuses to export any
more of the pitch blende refuse from
its Bohemia mines, and this refuse
is practically the sole supply of ra-
dunn III the world, We read of ra-
dunn deposits in America, and else
where but they are far inferior and,
America is TAR behind
France in the practical business of
refining rsdium.