New York City boasts a magnificently equipped Radium Institute, under
the directorship of Dr. C. Everett Field. And an even more famous
institution is that founded by the Mayo brothers, in Rochester,
Minnesota, where these eminent surgeons had accumulated an entire
gram of radium as early, at least, as 1920--the largest amount owned
by private individuals. This great institution--now known as the Mayo
Foundation--is no longer privately owned, but it is still under the
direction of the Mayos.
Radiotherapy (or, in France, _curietherapy_, in honor of the discoverer
of radium) or the treatment of various diseases by radioactive
substances, has not been applied so extensively as has treatment by
X-rays (Roentgen rays), produced in vacuum tubes. On the other hand,
the X-rays are not so effective (as usually applied) in the treatment
of certain morbid conditions as are the more penetrating Gamma rays
from radioactive substances; though the latter are essentially
identical with X-rays--swift Beta particles, or negative electrons--of
very short wave-length. To produce X-rays as penetrating as the Gamma
rays, about two million volts would have to be “cut” on the discharge
tube.
The Alpha rays are not often used in medical practice, and have little
penetrating power. They are stopped by 3½ cm. of air, or by a thin
sheet of paper. They are employed only in the way of radium “emanation”
(a gas) dissolved in saline solution, or by the use of needles upon
which active deposit from radium emanation has been collected. “In
either case the emanation water or the active deposit needles must be
introduced into the system--whether intravenously or into the solid
tissues,--otherwise the Alpha rays would have no power to act. In
either case, too, they act along with the Beta and Gamma rays produced
by the active deposit” (Lozarus-Barlow).
Beta radiation is used only for superficial conditions and always in
conjunction with Gamma radiation. “Instead of a radium salt, one of
its products, viz., radium emanation, is often employed chemically.
No essential difference is introduced by the use of this emanation
excepting that its intensity undergoes a progressive diminution with
time, since it falls to half value in 3.85 days. Early rodent cancer,
certain conditions of the eyelids, some cutaneous non-malignant tumors
and birth-marks, are treated successfully in this way.”
Physicians of the Memorial Hospital, New York City, announced in
October, 1925, that by filtering out 90% of the caustic Beta rays
emanating from radium and the high voltage X-ray tube, and using
principally the healing and stimulating Gamma rays, radiation treatment
of cancer of the tongue, lips, nose, ears or other part of the head has
been greatly improved.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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