Radio-active Waters
As to the physical properties of radium, it is, according to the theory of transformation, a “changing element,” emitting alpha, beta, and gamma rays, and in addition a radio-active emanation. This latter product exists in a gaseous form, and is the outcome of the ceaseless metamorphosis taking place in radium itself, each atom of which continuously ejects at high velocity an atom of helium.
This expulsion of helium having ensued, the parent atom no longer exists as radium, but as radium emanation, or niton, as it has more recently been designated. Now, from a therapeutic point of view, the salient fact is that elicited by Lowenthal, viz., that the active agent is not, as was previously thought, radium itself, but the emanation derived from it.[64]
Now, as a reference to our footnote shows, the Bath waters are radio-active to a remarkable degree, and as Maché, Curie, and Laborde hold that “the higher the emanation from a given spring, the more striking are the physiological results,” a brief reference thereto seems called for.
Physiological Action of Radium Emanation.—When inhaled, radium emanation swiftly passes from the alveolar spaces of the lungs into the blood, and thence to the tissue cells, which, according to their specific solubility, absorb the same. Eventually, if the inhalation is prolonged sufficiently, saturation of the blood therewith ensues, to be followed by its escape viâ the lungs, intestines, kidneys, and skin.
Taken orally, radium emanation, according to Lazarus, in large amount, passes into the arterial blood, an observation confirmed by other investigators experimenting on animals. Its absorption into the blood takes place slowly from the intestines, and its exit thence out of the system is, in like fashion, only slowly effected, taking hours for complete excretion. On the other hand, when inhaled the emanation is quickly absorbed and as swiftly excreted, i.e., within a few seconds. As to its power of penetrating the skin most authorities are sceptical, but Engelmann stoutly contends that he has proved that in immersion baths the emanation does actually pass through the skin; but pending further researches this question of cutaneous absorption must remain sub judice.
Again, radium emanation appears to be endowed with the power of energising or activating the body ferments or enzymes, in other words, can stimulate to greater efficiency the proteolytic, glycolytic, and diastatic ferments that set in motion that long chain of cleavage processes in the various foodstuffs, the necessary prelude to their absorption, assimilation, and ultimate transmutation into live protoplasm. Nay more, for the same mysterious agent, it is claimed, can activate those oxidising enzymes which initiate the equally intricate disruptive processes that mark the disintegration of living protoplasm.
Thus Neuberg, Lowenthal, Edelstein, and others contend that they have demonstrated such an increase of efficiency on the part of the autolytic enzymes responsible for cleavage of the protein molecule into nitrogenous bases and amido-bodies. That radium emanation should exert such a profound effect on organic metabolism, both in its anabolic and katabolic phases, would, if established, go far to dissipate the dark shadow of empiricism that has for so long clouded the practice of mineral water drinking and bathing. For it is precisely in those conditions collectively termed “disorders of nutrition” that radio-active waters have found their traditional rôle.