HEPBURN SPRINGS RADIO-ACTIVE. 
health in the imbibition of inordinate quantities of aqueous solutions 
of nothing more potent than self-deception? It seemed hardly probable; 
yet, if not, the waters must surely contain something of so subtle a 
character as to escape detection by chemical means. — 
In the whole history of science, there is no tale more wonderful 
than that of radio-activity. Less than a quarter of a century ago, 
absolutely nothing was known of it—the very word did not exist. To-day 
it is an independent branch of natural science, with a great literature 
of its own, and with laboratories and skilled researches devoted entirely 
to its service. Uranium and thorium, among the older elements, were 
found to possess hitherto unsuspected powers; special means of detecting 
and measuring these powers were invented; by their aid new and power- 
fully radio-active elements—radium and ethers—were discovered, their 
manifestations studied in detail, and a true theory of their causation 
built up. And this in turn has thrown new light on the fundamental 
question of the nature of matter in general. 
The physiological effects of radium and its gaseous emanation, known 
as niton, and their uses as healing agents, are but a side-show from the 
point of view of the true radio-activist; but to the ordinary mortal and 
to the medical profession they form the most important chapter of the 
story. It is a chapter as yet but partly written, and containing sensa- 
tions and mysteries as yet unsolved. 
A few years after the discovery of radium, Lord Blythswood and 
H. S. Allen proved that the Bath springs, famous since Roman days, 
and also the well-known waters of Buxton, have radio-active characters 
which they owe to minute traces of radium and niton. The matter was 
more fully investigated later by Sir William Ramsay and Irvine Masson; 
and other experimenters examined other famous springs in Germany 
and elsewhere, and proved that they also are radio-active. Here, then, 
is the suspected subtle something, too minute for chemical detection, yet 
potent enough to affect the electroscope, and apparently also able to 
influence beneficially that delicate instrument, man. 
