time
to the action of Radium rays, will refuse to germinate. When directed
against the skin of a living rabbit for some short space of time, the
rays have been found to produce a reaction, followed by a marked
increase in the growth of fur about that part. Nevertheless, it
appears to be essential that during these effects (indeed, most
probably causative thereof,) access of the metal to the open air shall
be maintained; in order that the oxidising power of the air (ionised)
may be brought to bear on the affected area which is being (so to
speak) radiumised. Which being so, we may legitimately suppose that the
kindred occult, but none the less actual, effects which potential
Precious Stones, and the Nobler Metals, may be relied upon for
exerting, will be materially enhanced by their applications being made
directly to the part whilst bare of covering, and exposed to the air.
Of course these imperative conditions are already provided for when the
said remedial agents are worn as Jewels on the hands, or as ornaments
around the unclothed neck. Sir Oliver Lodge inclines to the belief that
Radium, for remedial uses, in the hands of doctors, will replace almost
every other source of therapeutic rays. Curiously enough an old record
of the seventeenth century tells about certain pills— " Pilulse Radii
Solis extractse," (Pills made by the Solar Rays,)—which became as
widely famous then as the well-known Morrison Pills later on. The
inventor of the " Ray Pills" was one Lionel Lockyer, who lies buried in
the Church of St. Saviour's, Southwark, (now a Cathedral). The Epitaph
over Lockyer's tomb runs thus :
" His virtues, and his pills are so well known
That envy can't confine them under stone ;
This verse, tho' lost, his pill embalms him safe
To future times without an epitaph."
