NA TURE 



[March 4, 1909 



RADIO-THORIUM. 



DURING the past week accounts have appeared in 

 the daily papers of a discovery emanating from 

 America of "a new rival to radium" called radio- 

 thor ; and as in name and in the circumstance that 

 the body is spoken of as a cheap substitute for radium 

 the body bears obvious resemblance to radio-thorium, 

 well known as one of the most interesting and promis- 

 ing members of the radio-active hierarchy at the present 

 lime, it may be of interest to compare the two bodies. 



It is obvious that the resemblance begins and ends 

 with the two ix)ints referred to. Radio-thor, we read, 

 was discovered by Dr. Bailey, of Hahnemann Medical 

 College, Chicago, in pitchblende from Colorado. 

 It is stated in the recent report with which the public 

 has been favoured, that the new body possesses all the 

 curative properties of radium and none of its baneful 

 after-effects, that the supply is apparently unlimited, 

 and that it is within the reach of persons of moderate 

 means. When placed in contact with the negative 

 pole of a magnet it becomes luminous (!) J it colours 

 common glass like Bohemian glass; and is of immense 

 value financially. Dr. Bailey, adds the account, claims 

 to have discovered a positive remedy for locomotor 

 ataxy, cancer, and other maladies that have long 

 baffled the medical profession. The prolongation of 

 life and the cure of all ills by its aid are also referred 

 to airily by a colleague. 



It is a relief to turn from this monotonously familiar 

 exploitation of knowledge to the radio-thorium of 

 science, the intensely radio-active product of thorium, 

 giving a rays, first separated from the new Ceylon 

 niineral thorianite, which consists mainly of thorium 

 oxide, by Otto Hahn while working in Sir W. 

 Ramsay's laboratory. Its period of half-change was 

 determined to be two years by G. A. Blanc, who in- 

 dependently separated the substance from the sedi- 

 ments of the hot springs of Baden-Baden. The sub- 

 sequent developments formed as fascinating a chapter 

 of progress as any in radio-activity. The first product 

 of thorium to be separated and recognised was the 

 thorium X, of period four days, which Rutherford and 

 Soddy found was left in solution when thorium is 

 precipitated by ammonia. We know now it is the 

 product of radio-thorium, whicli in this separation, as 

 always, remains with the thorium. So closely allied 

 are thev in chemical nature that even to-day no pro- 

 cess is known of separating them. Yet both thorium 

 and radio-thorium are known alone because though 

 the one is the product of the other, it is not the 

 direct product. 



There is an intermediate body, " meso-thorium," pro- 

 duced from thorium, and producing radio-thorium. Its 

 period is not yet accurately known, but is estimated at 

 .seven years. It gives $ rays only. BoltwQod showed 

 that in the ammonia separation referred to the meso- 

 thorium goes with the thorium X, and leaves the radio- 

 thorium with the thorium. In the course of a few 

 years the radio-thorium all changes, leaving thorium 

 alone, while the meso-thorium grows new radio- 

 thorium, readily separable as before. In all probability 

 all the radio-thorium yet prepared is not ready-made 

 r,-idio-thorium separated from thorium, as the inves- 

 tigators first thought, but re-formed radio-thorium 

 produced during the separation from the easily 

 separable meso-thorium. 



.^s the result of these researches it was suggested 

 by Rutherford that meso-thorium and its spontaneously 

 nppearing family of products — radio-thorium, thorium 

 X, &c. — might serve as a cheap and effective substitute 

 for r.-idium for many purposes. In the Welsbach gas- 

 mantle industry thorium salts are manufactured by 

 the ton. The readily separable meso-thorium plnvs no 



NO. 2053, VOL. 80] 



part in the commercial application of thorium, and 

 could be removed without injury to the product and 

 with no appreciable waste of the substance during the 

 manufacturing process. At first it would only give 

 13 rays, but in the course of a few years a radiation 

 would make its appearance as radio-thorium and its 

 products were formed. The substance would then 

 comprise practically the whole of the radio-activity of 

 as large amounts of thorium in as small amounts of 

 matter as desired. For most purposes such a body 

 would be as valuable as radium. The activity, it is 

 true, would not be permanent, like radium essentially 

 is, but it would last a good many years — long enough 

 to be very useful — and its cheapness and the practically 

 unlimited supply of it would compensate for this lack of 

 permanence. It is to be hoped that the thorium manu- 

 facturers of Germany and America are following up 

 this suggestion. Frederick Soddy. 



THE POOR LAW COMMISSION REPORT. 



IT might be thought that this document would 

 hardly furnish matter for consideration in a 

 .scientific journal, but those who have given the 

 closest attention to subjects of poverty and public 

 assistance are getting to be more and more convinced 

 that it is to scientific study and the application of 

 scientific principles, in other words, to the cultivation 

 of a scientific spirit, that we have to look for the 

 best remedies of the various evils of social life, and 

 that it is by the want of that spirit that those evils 

 have grown up. 



The report in question will probably rank in future 

 as an economic State paper of as great importance as 

 that of 1832, upon which the reform of the Poor Law 

 in 1834 was based. That rejxjrt bore fruit for many 

 years in a gradual reduction of the number of paupers 

 and the volume of pauperism. Recently a reaction 

 has taken place, and the number of paupers and the 

 volume of pauperism have increased. The conclusion 

 is irresistible that considerations other than scientific 

 ones have been allowed to have undue weight. 



The present report defines the principles ujxjn which 

 the poor law reform (incorrectly printed as " report " 

 at pp. iv, 53, 80) of 1834 proceeded, as follows : — 



(i) That relief should not be offered to able-bodied 

 persons and their families otherwise than in a well- 

 regulated workhouse. 



(2) That the lot of the able-bodied should be made 

 less eligible than that of the independent labourer 

 outside. 



With these principles there can be no quarrel, and 

 to their having been carried into effect with more or 

 less fidelity during the greater number of the )'ears 

 that followed must be attributed the decline in 

 pauperism to which we have adverted. It is to the 

 gradual weakening of these principles in later years 

 that the reaction towards an increase in pauperism 

 is due. The causes of this reaction and the remedy 

 for it constitute the real problem which was submitted 

 by the King in 1905 to the Commission which has 

 just made its report after a patient investigation 

 occupying more than three years. 



One source of the failure of the present system has 

 undoubtedly been the inefficiency of the local authori- 

 ties charged with its administration. The boards of 

 guardians are elected by popular vote, but that election 

 attracts little popular interest. In London somewhat 

 more than a quarter of the electorate trouble them- 

 selves to vote for a guardian, while nearly three times 

 as many will vote for a member of Parliament. The 

 result is that men are sometimes returned on those 

 boards who are ignorant of the laws they are selected 

 to administer, and who have other reasons for seeking 



