quence of this dangerous custom of examining the morning urine only. The whole twenty-four hours' urine should in all cases be collected for examination, day urine in one bottle and night urine in another, and the contents of each bottle separately examined. The patient should, moreover, be cautioned to drink as little as possible during the 24 hours when the urine is collected.

"Lastly it should not be assumed that cases of apparently acute nephritis have terminated in perfect recovery in the case of female children until repeated examinations at the age of puberty have demonstrated that no recrudescence of the renal trouble has taken place."

Hysterectomy for Fibroids.-The operative records of 50 cases of abdominal hysterectomy for fibroids is given by C. J. Pond (Lancet, Jan. 17, 1903), from which he draws the following deductions: The position as to operation depends on the danger to life and the degree of displacement, of ill-health and of suffering caused by the disease. The social condition of the patient is a factor. Comfortable invalid life is incompatible with poverty; therefore, the disease must be removed among the poor, in order to return them to working capacity. Among the more wealthy classes, moral, mental and physical degeneration follow long-continued invalidism, which would be good grounds for operation, when other conditions permit. Whenever the disease causes displacement, hemorrhage, pain and pressure sufficiently severe to threaten damage to the general health, to the nervous system, to the pelvic organs, the operation should be advised. Cervical hysterectomy has a lower mortality (about 4 per cent.) and is preferable to ovariotomy in this particular. The uterus may safely be impacted at this level, and the absence of recurrence in the error is an argument for this form as against panhysterectomy. In the former the pelvic floor is left intact; in the latter it is damaged. Myomectomy is a valuable operation, and applicable for certain accessible tumors. In all possible cases, one or both ovaries should be left in and not removed. Convalescence is more complete, and the patient has no artificial menopause.-Medical News.

He

Prognostic Significance of Albumin in the Urine.-Dr. Edward W. Lambert (Medical News) has an article on this subject. He is medical chief of one of the largest life insurance companies in the world and speaks from the medical examiner's point of view. makes this statement: "In my judgment no healthy individual has this substance (albumin) in the urine, and its presence is a sure indication that something is out of gear somewhere in the functions of the body." This does not necessarily mean that the patient is doomed, for the cause may be transient. Cyclic albuminuria may exist. The author cites a case where it was found every day after noon, never before. The patient died of Bright's disease. Albuminuria often exists in young people and is then usually curable. Finally, Lambert says that the life led by the individual means more than the presence or absence of albuminuria. Correct living may cure the condition.

Mastoiditis with Mental Disturbance.-Dr. Powers, of San Francisco, in the Occidental Medical Times, reports an obscure case. The patient, a married woman, entered the hospital with a vague account of a severe disease of the left ear, from which she was supposed to have recovered. She was very nearly unconscious and entirely irrational, lying on her back with the head turned a little to the right, shrinking from a candle held near the eyes, otherwise showing no sensation or intelligence. The pupils were dilated, reacting normally to light, and there was no strabismus and no change in the fundus of the eye. There was a tendency to opisthotonos, and the abdominal walls were rigid and somewhat retracted, these conditions continuing until full consciousness returned, nearly three weeks later. There was no mastoid swelling or tenderness whatever, but sensitiveness in the left auditory meatus, and the meatus walls were somewhat swollen, just enough to render impossible a satisfactory inspection of the membrana tympani, and there was no sign of purulent or other secretion in the visible part of the meatus. Incision of the drum membrane, as free as could well be made in an invisible field, was followed by a trifling hemorrhage, and later by a few drops of pus, and had the effect of arousing the patient to a very talkative mood. After the pain of the incision was over she expressed relief, but could not control her thoughts or memory, nor her tongue, but chattered on wildly, willing to be interrupted for the asking of a question but unable to answer intelligently, and resuming her irrational talk immediately. The patient was seen by various other physicians, and after two weeks Dr. Powers operated. No pus was found in the antrum or mastoid cells, but they were full of granular and polypoid detritus. The patient was rather worse than better for a few days, then improvement set in and she made an uninterrupted recovery.

Two Cases of Interstitial Nephritis in Congenital Syphilis.With remarks on syphilis as an etiological factor in nephritis. By G. A. Sutherland and Dr. J. W. T. Walker. (British Medical Journal, April 25th.) The authors report two cases of interstitial nephritis occurring in infants aged eight and sixteen months respectively. The diagnosis was first made at autopsy. In both cases the process consisted of a diffuse infiltration of the interstitial tissue of the cortex of the kidney, and in both there was evidence of congenital syphilis. The kidneys were fully developed, and in no way resembled the condition of renal atrophy due to syphilis which has been described by Stoerk. Other observers have reported cases of acute and chronic interstitial nephritis occurring in the syphilitic children, and the author states his belief that the sole cause in many cases is the syphilitic poison. Nor does he limit himself to cases occurring in childhood-hereditary and acquired syphilis may account for many cases of granular kidney of adults.

-New York Medical Journal.

VOLUME XVIII.
Third Series.

No. 12.

Vol. LI.

DECEMBER, 1903. (VOL

NORTH AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HOMEOPATHY.

Original Articles in Medicine.

RADIUM AND ITS USES IN MEDICINE.

BY WILLIAM HARVEY KING, M.D., LL.D.
New York.

N the year 1896 M. Becquerel, being stimulated by the discoveries made by Crookes, Leonard, Roentgen and others of fluorescence produced within charged vacuum tubes, began experimentation to determine the fluorescence from various substances. One day he placed on a photographic plate, which had been previously covered with black paper that was impervious to the sunlight rays, some double sulphate of uranium, and as it was a cloudy day he placed all in a dark drawer. At the end of a week it occurred to him to develop this plate, and to his surprise he found that rays had penetrated through the black paper and fogged the plate. He therefore concluded that these rays must have come from the uranium itself, and not from any absorbed light which the uranium might have taken up and given off in the shape of fluorescence. M. Becquerel M. in this simple experiment had discovered a radio-active substance, or, in other words, a substance that was capable of giving off radiations that would penetrate other substances that were opaque to the sunlight, and would also fog a photographic plate from its own source of radiation and not from the fluorescence of absorbed ultra violet rays.

The next step was to discover what substance it was in the double sulphate of uranium that gave off these radiations. M. Curie and Mme. Curie, chemists, began a series of experiments to separate the various elements or salts of which the uranium is composed, and soon discovered one, polonium, thus named by Mme. Curie in honor of her native land Poland. Further experiments brought forth a second substance which, from its brilliant radiant properties, was named radium. Undoubtedly radium was the one

element which gave off most of the rays that M. Becquerel discovered; but polonium and still a third substance, actinium, which was later discovered, also give off strange radiations.

There are some very peculiar qualities about radium and its radiations which have never been noted in any other form of radiations. We have long been taught by scientists that something cannot be gotten out of nothing. That whatever energy is produced in one way must be taken from another source. That no energy can be made and none can be subtracted from the universe. Therefore when we get heat, we utilize a stored-up energy in coal or wood to produce it. But radium, at least with our present knowledge, seems to disprove this scientific theory. Here is a substance capable of giving off radiations for years and years with scarcely a perceptible loss to itself. These radiations are capable of penetrating the most opaque substances; they are capable of causing chemical changes, of producing actinic action, of destroying living tissue, and of melting every hour ice of the weight of the radium from which they emanate. No wonder Lord Kelvin turned to a friend when these facts were demonstrated and said:* “This is the first question mark that has ever been placed against the law of the conservation of energy." If we take a shaft of white light and pass it through a prism so that it is divided up according to the length of the waves of which its various parts are composed, we find that that part of the rays which are visible to the eye is made up of various colors, and we find also that what is visible to the eye is only a small portion taken from the entire shaft of the sun's ray. Beyond the red the vibrations are so long and so infrequent that they do not produce any visible effect, and are known as the ultra red rays. It is these rays that give us heat. Beyond the violet are a set of rays that are so short in length and so rapid in their course, that they too are invisible. These rays have marked actinic action, and are known as the ultra violet rays. So far as known to-day, the Becquerel ray as given off from radium, and the X-ray given off from the charged vacuum tube, are radiations of infinitely shorter wave length and far greater rapidity than the ultra violet rays. These rays, however, while possessing actinic action as do the ultra violet rays, have other qualities which the ultra violet rays have not. It will be noted also that while the Becquerel ray and the X-ray have many qualities in common, that the Becquerel ray also possesses qualities which the X-ray does not. One of the characteristics in common is that these rays cannot be reflected or refracted. It is true that in experiments made with * Wm. J. Hammer, Radium, Actinium and Ultra-Violet Light.

radium there have been found some rays that could be reflected and refracted, but it is generally understood to-day that these rays are only the fluorescent rays from the barium or impurities mixed with the radium. A fluorescence is simply an elongation of the wave lengths of the original ray. For instance, the X-ray is composed of waves so short and so rapid that they cannot be seen by the naked eye, but when they are thrown on a platino-cyanide of barium screen a fluorescence is produced that can be seen, or, in other words, the wave lengths of the ray are elongated by coming in contact with this fluorescent substance to such a degree that they become visible. It is, therefore, very probable that these waves which can be reflected and refracted are only fluorescent waves from the barium which all specimens of radium contain to a greater or lesser degree. The fact that the radiations from radium can be seen by the naked eye is due to this fluorescence on the impurities or barium. If a pure specimen of radium is to be produced the radiations from it cannot be seen with the naked eye, and they will not be reflected or refracted.

In the next place the X-ray and the Becquerel ray are similar in that they penetrate substances and objects which are opaque to the ordinary light ray. In the third place they produce destruction of living tissue in a very similar manner, and they produce the same or similar actinic action upon photographic plates. But it will be found that the penetration of the Becquerel ray is greater than the X-ray. It is capable of penetrating the skull, affecting nerve centers in a way that the X-ray is not. It is also capable of imparting its radio-activity to certain other substances which the X-ray is not, and the peculiar feature of this fluorescent radiation is that it is retained by the substance for a long time, and that the fluorescent rays are capable ofttimes of penetrating opaque substances similar to the radiations that come direct from radium.

The use that is to be made in medicine of the rays emanating from radium is, of course, as yet almost entirely conjectural. Something, however, has been done which shows the wonderful possibilities there are in it. There have been experiments made lately which have shown some results with the X-ray in epilepsy. The greater penetrating power of the radium ray and its more profound action on the nerve centers make it a far more potent remedy. Its powerful effect on nerve centers was proved by M. Curie's experiment when he placed some radium on the back of the neck of a guinea pig; the animal became paralyzed and died in a few hours. Also when radium is brought near the temples or closed lids light is perceived.