210 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



years that in the case of deeper seated and more rapidly destructive 

 cancers, much more difficult to treat, radium, aided by improved 

 technique, has competed successfully with the laiife. Such are the 

 cancers of the ton<^ue, of the mouth, of the throat, of the larynx, 

 and, that most deplorable of all, cancer of the womb, which, when 

 it attacks the mother of a family, seems a most cruel penalty of 

 maternity, making us especially tempted to accuse nature of in- 

 justice did we not know that her inflexible laws regard neither good 

 nor evil. 



With the last-mentioned series of cancers, in cases where opera- 

 tions are not possible, radium, well managed, gives not only wonder- 

 ful improvement, alleviation of suffering, and the prolongation of 

 life, but also in a very goodly number of instances permanent cures. 

 Even in cases where operations are possible, according to the most 

 recent and convincing observations, cures by radium equal or surpass 

 those with the knife. 



Formerly the physician, in the presence of a cancer, could only 

 ask, Is it or is it not operable? To-day he has to ask a more com- 

 plex series of questions. Of the three weapons — ^the knife, the 

 X rays, and radium — which compose our arsenal against cancer, 

 which shall he prefer? Shall he employ only one or associate sev- 

 eral? In the latter case how is it best to combine them? It is a 

 difficult problem. Doubtless the solution several years hence will 

 be different from what it would be now. It requires long study in 

 institutes and special hospitals such as have been for some time 

 established in almost all civilized countries. 



In the country of the discovery of radium and Curie-therapy, 

 painful as is the avowal, it was not until 1912 that the University of 

 Paris and the Pasteur Institute, by common accord, decided upon 

 the founding of an institute of radium. Its two unpretentious 

 buildings were slowly completed during the recent war. Into their 

 inert stones Madame Curie put the breath of life by a magnificent 

 gift which she had agi'eed upon with Pierre Curie previous to his 

 death. All the radium extracted from the ores from Bohemia by 

 their own patience and hands became the property of the new in- 

 stitute to be used in the jr.int work of its two laboratories — the Curie 

 Laboratory, under the direction of Madame Curie and devoted to 

 purely scientific physical and chemical researches, and the Pasteur 

 Laboratory, under the direction of Doctor Regaud, dedicated to bio- 

 logical researches and the study of the application of radium to 

 medicine. 



Soon afterwards, for the purpose of aiding and supplementing 

 the inadequate resources of the Radium Institute, there was founded 

 a new independent institution, the Curie Foundation, recognized as 

 a public service in 1021, available for all general conventions and 



