THE MYSTERY OF RADIOACTIVITY 1 



A dramatic critic ends his notice of a recent play with the words, 

 " Radium, what crimes are committed in thy name !" We are 

 scarcely so far advanced as to commit what are recognised as 

 crimes in the name of the new " element " but not a few are 

 engaged in gulling an ever-gullible public into the belief that it 

 has magic virtues which make it a cure for all sorts of evils and 

 in setting an entirely fictitious value upon it — to serve commercial 

 ends. In thus acting, the medicine-men of to-day are but putting 

 new wine into the old bottles which they have inherited from 

 their very remote ancestors : some must know full well that 

 there is nothing to justify the faith they preach, though others 

 doubtless are the dupes of their own credulity and are fallen 

 victims to the desire to believe in the occult which appears to be 

 innate in us. 2 

 The book under notice is one to be consulted by all who desire 



1 The Interpretation of Radium. By Frederick Soddy, M.A., F.R.S. Third 

 edition. [Pp. xvi + 284, with illustrations.] (London : John Murray, 1912. 

 Price 6s. net.) 



2 The use made of Radium is in no small measure a justification of Samuel 

 Butler's criticism : " If people like being deceived — and this can hardly be doubted 

 ■ — there can rarely have been a time during which they can have had more of the 

 wish than now — the literary, scientific and religious worlds vie with one another in 

 trying to gratify the public !" 



The effect of firing a profusion of bullets at a deal board would have is well known. 

 It would seem that this is the kind of effect produced by the various "rays" 

 emitted by Radium and that there is not the slightest reason to believe that it 

 acts in any specific manner, as a chemical agent would : it but destroys living tissues, 

 in the same way that X-rays, the rays from an electric arc lamp and strong sunlight 

 destroy them. It has been used with some measure of success, in place of the 

 surgeon's knife, to remove the surface form of cancerous growth known as rodent 

 ulcer ; but expert opinion favours the knife as far more certain, as it is difficult to 

 be sure that the whole of the cancerous tissue has been got rid of when radium is 

 used. It is more than difficult to believe that it can be effective in the case of deep- 

 seated growths. That the infinitesimal proportion of Radium present in natural 

 waters should have any useful effect is eminently improbable : those who encourage 

 the belief in its efficacy certainly have no evidence to rely on beyond that furnished 

 by their imagination. In most cases of disease, the factors leading to cure may be 

 50 numerous that it is impossible to single out one as the effective causQ. 



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