Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1914-02-08
RAD|U|N
BY NINE. CUR|E,
CA[LED|TFAKE
Surgeon Tells How He Scorned
Present From Fitted French
woman When 1t Was New.

NEW YORK, Feb. THE tube
containing from ten to fifteen grains
Of radium, which has been in use for
the past three weeks in the treatment
Of cancer cases N the office of DR..
Charles Russell Hancock, in West
Fifty second street, was a gift, it was
learned Yesterday, from Nine. Curle
to its present owner, DR. G. H. carp
Thomas. of Bloomfield, n. j.
The gift was made in 1900. before
the real value of radium in surgery
was known and when 1t was chiefly
renowned for other qualities. DR..
carp Thomas did not take the gift Sc
riously at first, as ne had to pay some
small amount of cash "for labor and
material used in preparing the ra-
dunn tubes, and he acknowledged ii
with an indignant letter to Nine. Gu
RE protesting against 1t as fake.
When the tube was made up, the
main purpose was to make the radium
as luminous as possible. East night
in a dark room DIR. carp Thomas tube
glowed brilliantly. He said that he
had seen samples of radlum bromide
at Harvard University which had only
small fraction of the luminosity that
his tube had
Scorned Gift as "Fake."
While he scorned the gift as 3
flake" when it came to him, because
he had expected Its quality of luml-
Mostly to be quite different from what
1t turned out to be, DR.. carp Thomas
said yesterday he would not now
part with his radium for any sum of
money and that he would always
treasure his letter from Madame
Curie explaining that the article was
not fraud and that the small guam
tity sent was all that could be fur
nished, as It was very hard to make
and could not be obtained in larger
quantities.
In the thirteen years since he OBJ
tanned his radium DR.. carp Thomas
has used 1t in archaeological expert
ments, testing its effects on the little
forms of life to be seen only under the
microscope. He said there was field
for the development of radium's use
In the baccilli as important as its use
fulness among humans, Ind that he
was contented to continue his expert
ments In his own chosen field of BAG
teriology, leaving the medical field TO
others.
MY father moved from England,
he said, land set up in New Zealand
an experimental laboratory for his
own pleasure NY brother Henry was
in Paris to complete his studies as
dental surgeon when he wrote home
to US about Nine Curie and her eK-
pertinent with radium What he
emphasized to us was that it was
luminous
Wanted II for Light.
The thought occurred to me that
1t would be a fine thing to obtain a
lot of this stuff and light our labora
tory with It, I wanted to see what IT
would do as an illuminant So We
took up a cores poudence with Nine
Curie. She replied with long letter
in French which we could not make
out very well. But we gathered that
a tube OF radium would be sent to us
later, and that it would be a gift iE
recognition OF the fact that the Aus
tralian Government had helped her
with donations of pitchblende. At the
same time she said there would he
charge for time In extracting this
particular tube OF radium from the
pitchblende.
"Angry--wily was hopping
mad And that Was what We had
paid our money for. And we
we're expected to light our laboratory
with that! l sat down in hot indig-
nation and said that the tube con-
tanned a great deal less than l had
expected and didn't do anything like