The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-12-18
NEW USE OF RADIUM.
Skin Specialists viii Try 1t in the
Treatment of Birthmarks.
NeW YOrk Tirnes.

The announcement that radium can
remove birthmarks, the latest sensation
among Partisan medical men, as related
in yesterdays special cablegram, was
received with a great deal of interest
by physicians and surgeons here. No
attempt has yet been made in this
country TO treat these distressing de-
formities with radium, but itsis prob
able that experiments will be made
forthwith in this direction.
DR.. L. D. Buckley, one of the visit
| ing physicians of the New York Skin
and Cancer hospital, said yesterday that
he was sure there must be something
in the idea.
Il do not care to express an opinion
upon this remedy" he remarked, "as /
have not tried it, but 1 know DR.. Wick
ham, one of the men who has-an-
nOunced the discovery at the Academy
Of Medicine in Paris, and | know him
TO be a careful man, who is in the fore
front i'm trying new methods. If he has
come forward with this remedy, I'm
sure there must be something in it,
The treatment most nearly akin to
that of radium which has been so far
rays for lupus a disfiguring cutaneous
affection. DR.. Buckley said that he had
been somewhat disappointed in the re-
suits obtained from it here. as they
did not seem to come up to the success
reported from abroad, but he was sure
that many cases of lupus had been ma
terially improved by the X-rays and he
wondered whether so-called port wine
stains" might not yield to the same
treatment
DR.. F. Torek. another of the visiting
physicians of the Skin and Cancer hos
pital was little surprised at the di-
rect application of radium particles
contained in Varnish to the face
"Radium," he said, before this. as
far as know, has been invariably con-
tanned in glass or vessels of some other
substance before it is set against the
skin. Its strength is so great that
severe burns have resulted from it.
THE cablegram is not quite definite
as to the birthmarks referred to- /
presume that those too large for oper-
alton are meant. We remove a number
of smaller ones by operation, and this
is the only absolutely satisfactory
method. But in the case of large stains
it is impossible to operate To remove
the discOlored tissue would cause the
formation of a scar. When people have
become used TO one Disagreement and
exchange it for another, they often
wish they had not made the alteration.
'As a matter of fact, we can now
reduce the Unsightliness of a port wine
stain. We prick it with electric needles
and thus cause a number of minute
white scars. They are not seen as
scars, but the effect is to diminish the
depth of the stain in much tho Same
way as you alter the tint of colors."
DR.. Torek went on TO say that as he
had noticed there was no mention of
any dissent from the views expressed
at the Academy of Medicine by DR..
Wickham and DR.. Degrais. he presumed
that their announcement was accepted
as authoritative. AT the same time he
uttered a warning against expecting
too much from a remedy before it had
had been finally tried out
1T is the curse of progress in medi- /
cine" he declared, this expectation of
too much. There was DR.. KOch's great
of tubercuiin. He never said
il cured tuberculosis, but people ex-
aggerated his views. There was the "
ray treatment for cancer. It has done
undoubted good, and is certainly one
of the things which must be tried be-
fore all hope is given up. But it causes |
patients to put off operations too long. !
If they came to the surgeon at once
the prognosis would be most faVora BILE |
but they waste time with the X-rays !
and then it is too late. 1t is the same |
with trypsin. though there never was
much to trypsin. Every discovery in /
medicine costs scores of lives through |
enthusiasm