A case of malignant disease of the appendix vermiformis treated with emanations of radium / by Sir Lauder Brunton and Lewis G. Glover.

  • Brunton, Thomas Lauder, Sir, 1844-1916.
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A case of malignant disease of the appendix vermiformis treated with emanations of radium / by Sir Lauder Brunton and Lewis G. Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    very great care the treatment is not without risk. The result of treatment by radium emanations in the case that we describe is little short of miraculous, and its failure in other cases was disappointing. It is to be noted, however, that the water which had absorbed radium emanations in the case of our first patient had been absorbing radium emanations for ten days. Later on, Sir William Ramsay discovered that these emanations apparently underwent destruction or altera- tion in the water, so that after exposure for five days it con- tained as much of the ordinary radium emanations as after ten days. It appears possible, therefore, that the active sub- stance in the first injections was not the radium emanations themselves as given off from the metal, but the substances into which they were transformed after solution in the water. At all events, the case seems to show that there is a possibility that radium emanations may be useful in cases of inoperable cancer and which cannot be affected by radium applied from the outside. Printed by JIoiirison & Gibb Limitkd, Edinburgh