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They recall the old-time electric belt, long since fallen into disuse, or of the prac-tice of laying a coil of electric wire in a jar of drinking water and turning on the “juice,” with the anticipation of obtaining a charge of revivifying electricity in homeopathic doses upon drinking the water. In short, the majority of these devices have no value except what may be due to the influence of sug¬gestion. They have the advantage that they can do no harm, which cannot be said of all radium treatment; but it should be most emphatically stated that cancer is not one of the disorders that should be so treated. It is a disease in which delay in securing proper treatment may be fatal.
Radium Emanation, or radon, is a radioactive gas pro¬ceeding from acidulated radium salt solution (radium salts being bromide, carbonate, chloride, and sulphate). It seems to settle on other substances as “an infinitely fine powder,” thus imparting to them temporary radioactive properties. It has a small amount of alpha-ray and gamma-ray activity. An Emanatorium is an institution where radioactive waters are drunk and radium emanations inhaled for the treatment of disease—usually with meager results.
There have been exploited so-called radioactive substancesfor prophylactic or curative purposes. Some of these con¬sist of so-called radioactive earth or stones, to be placed in jars (also said to be radioactive), in which water for drinking purposes is placed. After standing in these jars for a time, the water is supposed to have become radioactive and to have some of the properties of radium in small doses. The effect is said to be that of stimulating cell activity and general meta¬bolism. Clay or other earths said to be radioactive are placed in containers of chamois or other soft material for application to various parts of the body. The supposed emanations, pre¬sumably, are expected to penetrate to the seat of trouble, wherever that may be. If there is any radioactive substance in the rocks or the earths used, it will have the effect of impart¬ing limited radioactive property to other substances. But many of these articles or substances are totally lacking in radio¬active properties, or the radioactivity is so insignificant that no biological effect can be produced by it.
Improperly used, or when used for some condition in which radiation reaches the testicles or the ovaries, both radium and x-rays are likely to produce sterility. The effects of treat¬ments by both of these agents are cumulative; that is, single short applications may be safe, but, if repeated often enough for their slight effects to overlap, symptoms of overdosage may appear more or less suddenly. On the whole, the results obtained by radium scarcely warrant its continued use, unless it be in the few conditions mentioned above. But, when used, it should be under the supervision of a physician of wide experi¬ence in this treatment, who has seen enough of the harmful effects of wrong use and overuse to be extremely cautious. Except in eases of a highly specialized sort, a combination of the more usual physical therapies will accomplish all that radium and x-rays still attain.
The effects of radium and x-rays upon the body are much the same, the tissues having the least resistance being attacked more vigorously by both than are normal tissues. Upon this principle the therapeutic use of radium depends. But, as its cost is almost prohibitive, x-rays are used if the effect of the two agents is considered to be the same in a certain case. Because the amount of radium needed is so small, it can be used conveniently (in suitable containers, or by means of suit¬able applicators) in the interior of tumor masses, and be applied to certain internal organs. It can be placed under the eyelid, in the ear-canal, in the nose, mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, rectum, vagina, or uterus. It can also be used in the treatment of patients who cannot be taken to x-ray depart-ments or offices. For these reasons it is selected for a variety of disorders and for many cases. In case of malignant tumor it is often placed (in sterile tubes) in the interior of the tumor mass through incisions.
As with destructive doses of x-rays, radium therapy has not been found universally safe and its use is attended with much danger from destruction of normal tissue and great scar formation. In case of inoperable cancer radium sometimes checks the progress of the growth, and may reduce it to some extent, occasionally making it an operable one. But as a rule malignancy is not benefited by its use. In some forms of ulcerating and non-ulcerating epithelioma of the skin, in ro¬dent ulcer, superficial birthmarks, keloids, lichen, and psoriasis, radium has been used with greatest benefit, though in the case of psoriasis recurrence is very likely.
Radium (so named by its discoverer) is a metallic element of great weight, non-existent in a free state, but extracted in minute quantities from pitchblende (uraninite). It is 100,-000 times greater in radioactivity than uranium, its nearest competitor. Radium gives forth three kinds of rays known as alpha, beta, and gamma rays. The first two are emitted with great velocity, especially the alpha rays. Both are charged with negative electricity, but the beta rays have greater penetrative power than the alpha. The gamma rays are not electrically charged particles, as arc the other two rays, but waves very similar to, perhaps identical with, x-rays. They have great penetrative power and are not deflected by a magnet as are the other two. A very minute portion of x’adium will give off these rays without its OAvn reduction for “ages.”
RADIUM THERAPY—Radium possesses more than any other substance the properties known as radioactivity; libera¬tion of light and heat, the power of ionization (dissociation into ions), and the production of rays having power to pass through opaque bodies, affect photographic plates with impressions and cause various biological changes. Other radio-active minerals, possessing less of these properties, are uranium, polonium, actinium, and thorium. It was while in¬vestigating the phosphorescence of uranium salts that Profes¬sor Henry Becquerel, of Paris, discovered in 1896 the property of radioactivity. Radium itself was discovered in 1898 by Madame Curie, of Paris, and immediately became a source of hectic inquiry and controversy.
TreatmentRadio Short Wave Therapy (see also Artificial Fever, Page 2750).—Radio short wave therapy is a modern method of producing deeply penetrating heat within the tissues of the body. It is an improved development of medical diathermy, in which the heating of local tissue by high frequency electric currents is employed. The principal difference between ordi¬nary medical diathermy and short wave currents is that the short wave currents will pass through ordinary insulating material. Direct contact of metal electrodes with the skin is thus rendered unnecessary. Short wave treatment can be given in much less time than can ordinary diathermy treat¬ment, often with better results and with less chance of produc¬ing skin burns. Short wave electric currents are oscillating. They do not flow constantly in one direction, but oscillate or alternate rhythmically, reversing their direction of flow each half cycle. These currents are of various voltages, amperages, and frequencies. Yet they all follow certain unchangeable electric laws. Short wave currents are applied by the use of insulated pads against the surface of the body, or by the use of discs or plates which do not touch the surface of the skin but are kept at variable distances from the skin. They are also applied by what is known as the induction method, involving the use of an insulated cable which is wrapped about the parts to be treated.
The length of time of treatment varies but is considerably less than in the ordinary medical diathermy treatment. The application of radio short wave causes the generation of heat in that part of the body within the electric field, producing dilation of the blood vessels and a consequent hyperemia. This form of treatment has been recommended for cases in which heat within the tissues is helpful. Such treatment is useful in many cases of chronic arthritis without bony ankylosis, in neuritis, neuralgia, lumbago, chronic female pelvic conditions, sinusitis, bronchitis, infections, boils, carbuncles, pneumonia, and other conditions where deeply penetrating heat is bene¬ficial.
Different x-ray doses are used for different effects: stimu¬lative, inhibitive, destructive, and solvent. The last, which is sometimes called ionizing x-ray therapy, is safest and of serv- ice in the greatest variety of diseased states. In this therapy the dose is very small, the effects being more diffuse than local, yet very positive. It is often used in connection with ultra¬violet rays, infra-red rays and certain other physiotherapeutic agents. These other agents seem to intensify the effect of the x-rays; hence minute doses become very potent, yet safe— the effects being entirely different from those we usually asso¬ciate with x-rays.
More and more x-rays are being used in the treatment of various diseases, but in conjunction with and as a complement to other physical therapies, perhaps especially actinotherapy. In many diseased states for which they are commonly sup¬posed to be useful, however, they have no value, and actino¬therapy tends to supplant, in many minds, any idea of roentgenotherapy. The latter nevertheless has a field which, although somewhat restricted, is not likely to be usurped by any other therapy. The dangers associated with its improper use are such that the public needs to be cautioned never to submit to x-ray therapy upon the advice of a singlephysician, nor unless administered by a skilled roentgenologist.
It is evident, therefore, that x-ray therapy hardly can be¬come a home therapy, unless in the home of a physician; and, that being the case, there is no need to dwell upon the subject at great length in these pages. It seems advisable to present it, however, along with other therapeutic specialties of which the same may be said, in order that the reader who desires to familiarize himself with drugless measures may not be ignorant of an agent of great value when properly employed.
As a suitable definition of x-rays the following, from Sted-man’s Medical Dictionary, is submitted: “the ethereal waves or pulsations emitted from a Crookes or Coolidge tube, excited by the bombardment of the anode (positive) target with the cathode (negative) rays; they are believed to be a series of short pulsations following each other at irregular intervals.” The tube mentioned is electrically excited, and the rays pro¬duced have power to penetrate many objects and substances opaque to light. We found, earlier in this section, that the wave-lengths of the visible spectrum extended from about 3900 to about 7700 Angstrom units, the infra-red from 7700 to “infinity,” and the ultra-violet from 360 to 3900. The x-rays are about 282 Angstrom units, extending somewhat above and below this point in the great spectrum, even to and somewhat beyond 360 Angstrom units, thus overlapping the ultra-violet. They were made known to the world in 1895, having been discovered by the German physicist Wilhelm Konrad Roent¬gen (pronounced “rent-jen”). While popularly called “x-rays,” there is a tendency in scientific circles to use “Roentgen rays.” All derivative words employ Roentgen as their root, as roentgenism, the employment of Roentgen rays in diagnosis or medicine, or harmful effects of these rays upon the tissues; roentgenize, to apply the rays in diagnosis or treatment; roent-genologist, one skilled in x-ray application; roentgenoiherapy, treatment of disease by means of x-rays; and so on. Roent-genoscopy is the examination of any part of the body by means of Roentgen rays projected upon a fluorescent screen, but it is often called skiascopy (from Greek words meaning “I examine by shadow”), and fiuoroscopy (from fluorescence and the Greek word meaning “I examine”), the last term being the most commonly used of the three.
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