The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-06-22
RAD|UM |NFECTS Cl|RR|ES
Hounted by Sort of a Mineral
FrankenStein.
PERPETUAL LIGHT PLANT
Famous DISCOVERIES of Wonderful
Element SO Permeated with Its
Rays They Live In Constant State
Of adiation-Necessary to Build


Rays They Live in Constant State
OF Radiation-Necessar to Build
Another Laboratory.
The celebrated chemists, NJ. and
Nine. Currie, are suffering from an
embarrassment of too much radium.
The famous chemists of Paris, whose
discovery of this wonderful element
plunged the scientists of the world
into grave doubt as to the soundness
OF the atomic theory, have become
the victims of this mineral Franken-
stein and, having been driven from
their laboratory, are now likely to be
driven from their home.
M. Currie and his wife, who had
aided him in every step in his re-
searches, are suffering from what
Nine. Currie characterizes as "ra-
dunn pest" Incidentally they have
developed the fact that with radium in
use in sufficient quantities the extor-
tions of the gas trust would become
a thing of the past and the establish
nient of municipal ownership too sim
pie to require more than the impreg-
nation OF all parts of the city with
radium rays.
The laboratory of the Curries has
been turned into a perpetual lighting
pant by the abundant use of metal in
experiments, and even the room in
which they sleep has become so thor
Lughly impregnated that it has be-
come necessary to surround the bed
at night with heavy black curtains Oh
the sides and across the top.
There is radium everywhere about
the house and laboratory of the Cur
res, and there is but little hope of
relief for many years yet to come. as
they have estimated that the power
of the light from the impregnated
walls will have diminished less than
30 per cent in forty years.
The radium follows the two chem
lists everywhere. There is no way of
getting rid of it; no way of cleaning
the place or their clothes of the mys.
terious light that clings to and fol
lows them. Every piece of apparatus,
every article in use about the labora-
tory becomes in time a separate foun-
tain of light, giving off the weird and
setting up a new point of brilliance,
to remain such for decades.
In discussing the strange misfor-
tune that has overtaken her husband
and herself, Nine. Currie said today:
eve will have to build another la
boratory in our garden. The old one
is so impregnated with radium as to
render ali our apparatus useless.
The delicacy Of all the old apparatus
was destroyed by the influence of the
radium, and if we put new apparatus
In the radium infected rooms it soon
Geteriorates.
"The finest electroscopes II is pos
sible to buy work less accurately in
room where radium has been exposed
than the clumsy article consisting of
a cork, tin foil and the mouthpiece Of
an old pipe. My husband and myself
have found it impossible to work in
a room where radium has been ex-
posed for any length of time. The
rays infect not only the room but
the whole building. It has become.
IN TACT, a radium pest. Some of the
apparatus that has been exposed, the
new as well as the old, has acquired
the property Of throwing off radium
rays and cannot be used.
"The building will have to be torn
down, for even if every particle of
radium is removed, the rays will keep
on increasing in intensity for two or
three years, and after that, although
losing in intensity. will deteriorate
loss than so per cent in so years.
What would occur II you exposed
an article continuously to radium rays
for any length OF timer" was asked.
1T would continue to give off rays
for hundred years. at least" was
the answer.-New York Journal.