PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 7 
more satisfactory results might be obtained, and attempts. 
are being made in that country to give the Government 
greater control over the production of radium, and to a 
certain extent a monopoly of all deposits of carnotite,. 
pitchblende, or other ores containing radium in sufficient 
quantity for extraction, in lands belonging to the United 
States. 
At the present time, no less than 75,000 people die 
annually in the United States from cancer, and if it is only 
possible to save ten or fifteen per cent. of these by this 
method, then any expenditure of money in the preparation | 
or purchase of the necessary radium would be justified, if 
it could be obtained. The German Government, progressive 
as ever, gave last year a million marks with which to 
purchase radium, to be used in their teaching institutions 
and hospitals for public work. Important as this question 
must be to those countries whose populations are large, 
yet, itis just as important to us in Australia, as the deaths 
in this country from cancer are proportionate to those of 
other countries, and we should not be behind in the en- — 
deavour to save to the nation the lives of those who are 
now shown to die unnecessarily. Mr. Knibbs, the Com- 
monwealth Statistician, informs me that the deaths from 
the various forms of cancer in the Commonwealth during 
the year 1913 numbered 3,603. 
During the year one of our members, Mr. S. Radcliff, 
brought under the notice of the Society, and the world 
generally, the methods adopted by him at the works at 
Woolwich, near Sydney, in extracting the small amount of 
radium from the ore deposits at Olary, South Australia. 
This ore was found by Huropean chemists to be difficult of 
treatment, so that buyers could not be found for it. It is 
thus creditable in the extreme that the possibility of profit- 
ably treating the ore locally has been shown. ‘The success 
of the process adopted depends largely on the fact that it 
