When radium was discovered, though it came so soon after the discovery of the X-ray and our disappointment with it, the old story of another pseudo-scientific medical application was told. For a time it looked as though radium might accomplish all that had been promised for the X-ray, though that promise had been so lamentably broken. Then, besides radium, we had brought home to us the whole class of radio-active substances, and their possibilities. The internal administration of radio-active liquids was one of the hopes of therapeutics. We had found it difficult to explain how many of the mineral waters produced the beneficial action credited to them when taken at the spring. We knew that artificially made waters of exactly the same chemical composition, so far as we could determine, did not have the same effect, nor even the waters themselves when taken at a distance from the spring.

With the discovery of the radio-active principle there came the suggestion that possibly the main virtue of mineral waters at the spring was due to radio-activity. This would not be present in artificial water and would disappear from the natural water during shipment. This new idea was alluring, and it captured many. Radium seemed to be the new panacea. But we are discovering its limitations. It is of little avail in surgery; it is probably of less avail in medicine. As yet, however, we cannot say absolutely and must wait until results are determined. In the mean time many zealous advocates of the marvelous power of radio-activity to cure are exploiting it, apparently getting results and certainly making money. In the case of the mineral waters, also, the most important therapeutic element is probably the mental influence, which is strongest at the spring itself, where the suggestion of efficiency is repeated many times a day, and where the very atmosphere breathes confidence in the results to be obtained.