Radium Treatment of Cancer.

The author reports the radium treatment of malignant tumors as practiced at the Westminster hospital, in London, and the guiding theoretical considerations. An introductory chapter furnishes information concerning the physical principles of radioactivity. The author proclaims as the underlying principle of modern radium therapy prolonged irradiation administered with small doses. The method of distance irradiation is reported to have given results which outweigh all the unfavorable economical considerations. The technic of the hospital as applied to tumors of the various organs is minutely described, with numerous drawings and colored plates. Although the author in his introductory remarks professes a rather sober attitude as to clinical claims, some of the therapeutic results reported, such as in cancer of the mamma and lungs, outdistance the accomplishments of most others. In the discussion of the therapeutic efficacy of radium treatment, only the local reaction is determined; the systemic reaction, now generally estimated as