THE M E R I C A N
JOURNAL OF CANCER
A continuation of The Journal of Cancer Research
VOLUME
XXI
AUGUBT,1934
NUMBER
4
MARIE CURIE
On July 4, 1934, Marie Sklodowska Curie died at the age of sixtysix. She came of a Polkh family of culture and intelligence, and received her scientific education in Paris. There she married Pierre
Curie, a physicist of extraordinary genius, though a man but little
known, since his work was in a highly complicated field that had no
popular appeal.
After the discovery of x-rays, Henri Becquerel, who was professor
of physics at the Sorhonne, found that certain uranium salts would fog
a photographic plate encased in black paper. H e reasoned that there
must be some substance in the uranium salts which he employed which
gave out rays similar to x-rays. To the Curies, who were living in
Paris and teaching science in a small school, Becquerel turned to solve
the problem of what this substance was.
After two years of arduous labor, Marie Curie doing the chemical
portion of the investigation and her husband assisting her by testing
the various products which she obtained from a ton of uranium ore,
it wa8 announced that two substances had been discovered : Polonium,
named after Marie Curie’s native country, Poland; and Radium, tho
source of the rays which produced the effect that Becquerel had noticed.
The work was accomplished under the greatest difficulties with
wretched equipment and insufficient money. The Curies were poor
and could obtain the chemicals which they used in their work only by
borrowing money. Only years later was this burden of debt lifted, an
amount so pitiful that it seemed an especially cruel burden to have
been borne by two devoted scientists who asked for nothing but the
opportunity to work and refused to patent the discoveries which would
have made them fabulously wealthy. I n her Life of Pierre Curie, a
book which is far too little known, Madame Curie described the meager
circumstances in which they lived. I t was a true scientist’s life, and
their sole reward and their great happiness lay in their discoveries.
It has been given to no other woman so to revolutionize by a single
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MARIE CURIE
discovery the whole subject of atomic physics as did Marie Curie.
When it was discovered that Radium gave off heat, the theories of
physics, especially that of the conservation of energy, seemed to be
shattered, but shortly afterward it was shown that this heat was produced by the breaking down of the radium atoms and that it could all
be accounted for by the slow destruction of this newly discovered element which in 1800 years loses half its substance. Immediately the
entire scientific world took up the various problems which this discovery involved: first, the finding of new sources of uranium ore;
second, the production of radium by simplified chemical methods ; third,
the application of radium to medicine, primarily in respect to its
destructive action on tumors; fourth, the discovery of a whole series of
breakdown products, some of which live for only a thousandth of a
second, while others survive for hundreds of thousands of years, the
whole finally ending in lead. But this lead was not like ordinary lead;
it had very slight but still measurable differences. It was therefore an
isotope, for it gave the same chemical reactions as ordinary lead.
Again a fresh field was opened and we now know that many of the
supposed atomic foundation rocks of the universe have isotopes which
accompany them. Heavy hydrogen is in everybody’s mind because it
happens to have a dramatic appeal, but there are many other substances just as interesting.
So Marie Curie not only overturned physics, but changed chemistry,
also, in an astounding fashion. The convulsion which took place in the
scientific world was deeper than the changes made by wars, the activities
of politicians, or the creations of artists, for in the thirty-five years
that have elapsed since the isolation of radium, physics, which was
believed to have been finished and condemned to a relatively unimportant future, has become the most fertile present field of investigation in science.
I t must have cheered the frail Marie Curie-for she has been an
invalid for many years, carrying on only through her determinationthat her daughter, Irene Curie (married to M. Fr6d6ric Joliot), has
made new and revolutionary discoveries which would have rendered
immortal the name of Curie even if Pierre and Marie Curie had never
lived. Such has been the fertilizing effect of this woman of genius
upon the science to which she was devoted.
What was she like? To the writer, who saw her frequently, she
was the simplest yet the most loyal of friends, appreciative of every
kindness but full of reserves and great personal dignity, for her science
was to her a religion. To her, it was a matter of devotion. The question of money never entered except insofar as she must have food for
herself and her children, She refused all honors, except that of being
the first woman to hold a professorship at the Sorbonne, and twice
accepting the Nobel prize. The small human titles which mean so
much to lesser folk did not interest Marie Curie. Her work was for
humanity and nothing was allowed to interfere with it. Hence a social
life which hampered her activities or any complication of her simple
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existence she regarded as defrauding her of the time which she might
put to better use.
It is characteristic of her and of the children whom she trained that
the offer of the French Government for a national funeral was refused.
Nothing that governments or that individuals might do could increase
the glory which this life of arduous toil and bitter sacrifice has given
to the world.