The San Francisco call., 1906-07-30

~ ERKELEY, July 29-Radium as
x a cure for cancer or any other
disease is not taken very seri-
ously by DR.. Ernest Rutherford
the greatest living authority on ra-
dunn, who is now giving a course OF
lectures at the summer school of the
university. DIR. Rutherford is pro-
fessor of physics at McGill University.
He is the author of standard works on
radium, and holds rank that makes his
word on the subject authoritative Tc
the students who attended his class
yesterday DIR. Rutherford said:
The possibilities in the use of ra-
dium in curing diseases are not so
great as they were at first thought
to be. There has been distinct
falling off in the use OF radium ror
medical purposes, Radium as a means an
of curing diseases has never gone be-
yond the experimental stage. There is
The main line of advance in the use
of radium and it's study in the last
the transformations which take place
in the radio active substance, thorum,
actinum and uranium. It's investlga- :
tiens have shown that each of these
elements is unstaple and breaks up
with explosive violence. These trans
formations continue through a large
These new substances all possess some
we'll marked physical and chemical
properties, but differentiated from or
dinary matter by the fact that they they
active minerals these processes OF
Transformation have been in progress
for countless ages. and II Is 70 pc , e4-
tain the staple products OF the, decom-
position of the radioactive elements.
We find, for odnIae example heliumdii gsdiuw which
Radium is a changing substance ana
is gradually breaking up, and about a
thousand years is necessary Ior half a
active substances. If this is the cas-
quantity of radium left to itself
would disappear In about 10000 years,
is measured by millions of years, so
that radtum must be continuously pro-
duced from some other substance, or
otherwise it would have long ago van
ished from the earth Radium is pro-
duced from another element, uranium,
which is the. parent substance: In
consequences OF this parental i r@tiatlonl ,,inaTal
Is always proportional to the amount
of uranium IL contains; consequently
If we know the percentage OF uranium
in any mineral, we know at once the
amount 1t contains.
The interest attached to radium an6
the other active substances is more
theoretical than practical The radium
has disclosed to us that the atoms of
matter are not staple, but are. con-
tinuously changing into other forms:
Radium gives rise to a number OF
radioactive substances, each of which
is quite different in physical and chem
ical properties from radium. The most
interesting of these products Is the
radium emanation, which is a heavy
gas, but this gas is luminous in the
dark and rapidly blackens the glass
tube in which 1t is placed and gives out
heat at a very rapid rate.
If we had two pounds of radium we
would obtain from a cubic centimeteI
of this gas called the radium emana-
ton. This gas would possess all the
radioactive properties of the radiun
in very concentrated degree; for .ex-
ample, the heat given out from this
melt down the tube in which the ema
nation is placed. The radiating ant
heating effects of this emanation are
not permanent After four days the
effects are reduced to one-half anG
would altogether disappear in month