The wonders of radium

by Maynard Shipley

ALL MATTER RADIOACTIVE

While certain substances have been designated as “radioactive,” it is not to be understood that these bodies alone emit charged particles, or radiant energy.

“All bodies whatever are a constant source of visible or invisible radiations, which, whether of one kind or the other, are always radiations of light” (Le Bon, “The Evolution of Forces,” p. 318, 1908).

Compounds of potassium, and also of rubidium, caesium and lanthanum, as shown by Campbell, Wood, McLennan, Kennedy, and other investigators, possess very high radioactive properties. While the atomic weight of potassium is only about 39, and of rubidium about 84, the typical radioactive elements have atomic weights ranging from 200 to 238. Of the 12 to 15 elements essential to life, potassium is the only one possessing distinct if minute radioactivity. “The activity of potassium may readily be demonstrated by means of the goldleaf electroscope. It is shown that Beta rays are emitted” (Burns). But potassium is 1000 times weaker than uranium, and 1,000,000,000 times weaker than radium, in the emission of Beta (negative) rays. Caesium and lanthanum emit Alpha (positive) rays.

Professor Dufour, the distinguished French scientist, has shown that even air that has been breathed emits radioactive particles. The presence of radioactive matter in the atmosphere has been shown to account for its electric conductivity. Thomson found (1906) that many specimens of water from deep wells contain a radioactive gas, and Elster and Gertel have found that a similar gas is contained in the soil.

It is probably safe to assert, with Le Bon, that all matter, “down to the absolute zero of temperature,” radiates electrified and more or less luminous particles, albeit they are invisible to the human eye.

It is because of its property of emitting negative electrons (Beta rays) that potassium is a necessary constituent of all living matter. It may, however, be replaced, under certain conditions, by other radioactive substances.

Prof. Barton Scammel, of the British Radium Society, gave it as his opinion (in 1922) that further experience in the proper uses of potassium salts and radium in solution would lead to the realization of a new golden age. He predicted, among other “good tidings,” life for 120 years in the bloom of youth, the “pep” of 25 years at 75, a third set of teeth, new hirsute coverings for erstwhile bald heads, muscles like Jack Dempsey’s.

Dr. C. Everett Field, of the New York Radium Institute, stated publicly, in backing up Scammel’s hopes and theories, that he thinks another ten years will see human life vastly prolonged as a matter of course by the use of radium. He said:

“We have ascertained beyond question that potassium salts are necessary to heart action, that they are slightly radioactive, and that radium can be substituted for them with a degree of success.

“It was Dr. Zwaardemaker, physiologist of the University of Utrecht, who first discovered, a number of years ago, that radium could do in the blood stream what potassium salts do in the normal person. He took an animal’s heart, which was kept beating outside the animal, and removed the potassium element. It was not longer possible then to keep it in action. Then he substituted a radium solution and it was possible to restore action.”

Dr. Field stated that it had been discovered that the systems of victims of cancer and other wasting diseases were deficient in potassium salts, and that as their systems were made to assimilate potassium a tonic effect was noticeable at once. The greatest trouble was to make the body assimilate the potassium.

“The fact is,” said Dr. Field, one of the more conservative radium therapists, “that radium does not do the healing. But, for that matter, neither does any other form of healing. The healing exists within the organism. And radium, I am convinced, in some cases, is the most efficient medicine to give needed stimulus to the healing apparatus of diseased organisms.”

Even now, he believes, radioactive treatment may prolong life at least 15 years. For internal treatment, either doses of radioactive water, or extremely minute quantities of radium itself, are administered. Radioactive water is taken from springs found to contain traces of radium, or radium is used to make ordinary water radioactive. The difficulty with spring waters is that they lose their radioactive power when bottled and transported, and must be consumed at their source.

“Because of this fact,” says a writer for The Popular Science Monthly (June, 1923), “a group of physicians interested in the use of radium as a curative stimulant have invented an ingenious device for imparting radioactive properties to ordinary water. As designed for use in the home, this instrument consists of a case containing an arrangement of glass tubes and vessels in which emanations from radium salts in solution are imparted to air, which is then mixed with the water.

“A much simpler apparatus, available for office use, somewhat resembles a hypodermic syringe, containing special capsules of radium salts. Pushing a plunger forces air through the radium capsules and into a glass of water and is said to make the water radioactive. The doses of radium in each case are constant, because radium emanates at a constant rate, and only a certain amount can be dissolved in water, no matter how many times a day the apparatus is brought into use.

“Whether radium treatment will prove able to restore youth to old age, grow new sets of teeth and perform other marvels that its more ardent supporters predict for it, only time will tell.

“If radium treatment proves to facilitate the process of cell elimination, it will have gone a long way toward delivering the world from its enemies of disease.”

The philosopher-scientist, Le Bon, makes bold to suggest that light-waves which are invisible to human eyes may be perceptible to nocturnal animals, which would include most of the lemurs and the felines, and some other beasts which seem to be capable of finding their way and carrying on their predatory or other activities in the dark. “To them,” says Le Bon, “the body of a living being, whose temperature is about 37° C., or about 98° F., ought to be surrounded by a luminous halo, which the want of sensitiveness of our eyes alone prevents our discovering. There do not exist in nature, in reality, any dark bodies, but only imperfect eyes.”

Le Bon has also said that the human body is sufficiently radioactive to photograph itself by its own rays, if we could find a substance sensitive to these radiations, as the photographic plate is to the actinic rays. Nothing would then be easier, he declares, than to photograph a living body in the dark without any other source of light than the invisible light which it is continually emitting.

Some recent (1924) experiments of the French scientist, Dr. Albert Nodon, seem to afford the actual proof of Le Bon’s a priori conclusions. In the presence of a number of noted scientists, Dr. Nodon exhibited three photographic plates on which were unmistakable light impressions, which, he claimed, were caused by the rays emitted by a radioactive mineral, an insect, and a green leaf, which had been placed on the emulsion side of the plates in a dark-room.

A similar experiment, in which a dead insect and a dead leaf were used, resulted in no ray impressions on the plates. Dr. Nodon offered as his conclusion that radioactivity is an inevitable accompaniment of living processes, and stated that the strength of photographic impressions produced in experiments such as his are an accurate measure of vitality (see Popular Science Monthly, October, 1924).

Radium is probably present in all the planets and stars. Some time ago the Astronomer Royal of England, Dr. F. W. Dyson, demonstrated the existence of radium and of radium emanation in the sun’s chromosphere (the ocean of incandescent hydrogen gas surrounding the photosphere, or actual surface of the sun).

CHAPTER II
EVERYDAY USES OF RADIUM

During the World War large quantities of radium were employed by the Allies for night compasses, luminous dials on airplanes, gun-sights, etc. In times of peace it is used on pendants for locating electric lights and switches in the dark, key-holes, fire-extinguishers, poison bottles, emergency call-bells, and in many other ways. For example, some mining corporations use signs in their mines made luminous in the dark by phosphorescent paint made from radioactive substances. These luminous signs are not affected by atmospheric conditions.

Yet for all these uses, including “radium watches” and clocks, not more than half an ounce of radium has been used since its discovery in 1898. A few millionth parts of a gram of radium, in the form of radioactive barium sulphate, a large portion of phosphorescent zinc sulphide (crystallized zinc), mixed with varnish and some adhesive substance, give enough material to illuminate 40 or 50 watches. One gram of radium (= 16 grains) combined with 20,000 grams of secret process phosphorescent zinc sulphide is sufficient to make 667,000 watches luminous for many years. The factories of this country are now turning out about four million radium watches annually.

Unless a special preparation—known only to the manufacturer—is used, the luminosity of the material gradually disappears, owing to the destruction of the zinc sulphide crystals by the powerful rays constantly bombarding them, producing flashes at the rate of 200,000 a second. The radium itself does not glow, nor does it deteriorate in power.

If we examine a luminous dial through a magnifying glass, after the eyes have been in total darkness for a few minutes, tiny flashes of light may be seen. These are caused by the explosion of hundreds of millions of radium atoms. The more radium there is in the paint, the greater the number of flashes per second, and the more durable the luminosity. Since every flash means a blow upon a crystal of zinc sulphide, the crystals gradually break under the strain. In this process helium is released from the disintegrating radium atoms.

Mr. M. A. Henry (Scientific American, April 2, 1921) points out that the problem of the chemist “is to produce a phophorescent substance which will stand up longest under the terrific bombardment of the radium rays and which, at the same time, will give off the most light. Such progress is being made in this direction that today [1921] only about one-twentieth the amount of radium used four years ago [1917] is needed in the making of luminous material. And the chemist insists that he has only scratched the surface of possibilities in this direction and that even better results can be attained. At present the life of the zinc crystals is from 15 to 20 years, although the radium lasts for centuries.

“This life will be much longer if the instrument to which it is applied is kept away from the light most of the time. The crystals, already stressed by the radium rays, have an additional strain imposed by the light and this hastens the process of disintegration. Strong sunlight, especially at the seashore where the presence of much ozone in the air intensifies the ultra-violet rays, has a very destructive effect on luminous material. For this reason the manufacturers of this delicate substance usually guarantee it for about half its normal life, or ten years.”

A radium-lighted fish-bait is now on the market, and fishermen say that this bait is very successful in attracting fish which haunt deep water.