Evening star., 1941-04-15
Of Stors, Men
And Atoms
Notebook Of Science Progress
In Laboratory. Field
And Study
BIZ Thomas r. Henry.

~ AftOHt1o Ave- <<Sf6
On the frontier of mans war against
his third most deadly enemy, cancer, is
a new kind of radiation, neutron bonn
| bardment.
1t has been made possible by the
| gigantic cycltrons, hurting atomic can
nonballs with energies of millions of
volts, into cancerous tissue.
Compared to it, X-rays and radium are
like machine guns compared with field
artillery. Many hopes have been aroused.
Some may be justified.
Such is the verdict of the American
Society for the Control of Cancer in a
statement prepared for the National
Association of Science Writers after a
thorough study of the present status of
the treatment. Some of the most diff
cult problems, however, remain unan-
sWered.
The principle of neutron treatment,
the statement points out, is the same as
that for X-rayS and radium. Neutrons
undoubtedly will kill cancerous tissue
just as effectively as the older methods
.
they will kill healthy tissue and, used to
excess. they might cure the disease, but
kill the patient.
The problem is to get them to spend
the greater part of their energy on
cancer alone. Ways of doing this seem
just over the horizon, it was explained
by DR.. G. Failla of Memorial Hospital,
ri ,e
For some time it has been recognized
that the killing effect of the atomic
! cannonballs, per Sc, is not what counts.
When they hit flesh or bone they trans
mute some of the atoms found there
into radioactive elements-that is, they
make something akin to radium, but
much shorter-lived, in the body itself.
Some elements, such as boron and
lithium, are quite easy to transmute un-
der neutron bombardment and form
powerful radioactive substances. There
is very little of them, either in normal
tissue or cancer tissue. The essential
for any degree of success in the treat
ment is, first, to get a concentration of
these elements into the tissue 1t is
desired to kill.
One way of doing it, Dr. Failla ex-
planned, is by deliberately injecting these
elements into the tumor. This is con-
sidered highly Objectionable and is apt
TO do more hurt than good In very
recent experiments, he said, it has been
possible by injecting lithium into the
blood streams of mice to get a double
concentration of it into mouse tumors
compared to that in the vital organs of
the animal.
Experiments are in progress, he said,
to find some dye which can be injected
into the blood stream which will con-
cenTate in abnormal tissue and avoid
normal tissue. If this could be done
atoms of boron or lithium might be
attached to the dye. A stable, non toxic
compound of lthium and phosphorus
now is being used. If successful it NAV
be possible to use phosphorus previously
made radioactive, and thus still further
increase the effect.
Growth of the American city NAV have
been checked in the past decade after
advancing steadily for $50 years.
This is the conclusion of the Popula-
ton Association of America after analyz-
ing the returns of the last census.
In every census since 1920, the associa-
tion reports, the growth of the urban
population consistently has exceeded
that of the rural At first such a large
percentage of the people were country
folk that this made little difference in
the general makeup of the Nation.
The report says that city growth was
so rapid that it has transformed the
United States from a predominantly
rural TO a predominantly urban state.
The proportion of the entire population
in cities grew from slightly over one
fourth in 1880 to half in 1920 and con-
tinued to increase to 56.2 per cent in
$780,
In the decade just past, the census
showed, the urban population grew 7.9
per cent, but at the same time the rural
areas experienced an increase of ga
per cent.
Technically speaking, says the report,
prepared by Princeton University ex-
perts associated with the association,
this represents a continuation of the
150-year-ol cltyward trend, but the
rise of the city in relation to the coun-
try was so negligible as to indicate that
something important and unexpected has
happened.
Between 1920 and 1880, for example,
city growth was more than six times
greater than the rural, while in the
decade just past there was hardly any
difference. The rate of city growth was
the lowest in the Nations history, while
the rural growth exceeded that of any
decade since 1910
At first, the report says, this urbani-
zation tendency was toward the large
cities of the Northeast. In the early
30s this trend was reversed and the
smaller cities of the South and West,
spurred by new factories, began to
build up. At the same time the North
east was becoming more rural. All but
of the IS States less urban than the
average in 1880 became more urban in
the past decade
Cities of over 100000 population had
an average growth of only 46 per cent
since 1880, a rate considerably below that
of the Nation as whole and some
what lower than the rural rate of
growth. Cities of below 100000 had
growth rate of 117 per cent and ex-
ceeded all the larger cities in every part