Maimed soldiers were returning to Paris, limbs hacked off and bodies destroyed by probing because no X-ray equipment or technicians were available at field hospitals. Within a few weeks, [Curie] commandeered unused X-ray equipment from laboratories and the offices of doctors whose occupants had gone to war. At first, this equipment was placed in Parisian military hospitals. Then, in a moment of inspiration, Marie devised the idea of “mobile X-ray units” which could be used in battle-front hospitals to diagnose the wounded before treatment. The first two cars were donated by the Union des Femmes de France. The cars had to be small enough to navigate narrow roads and that the equipment must be lightweight.
Each mobile unit contained a small generator that could be hooked up to a car battery when electricity was unavailable on-site. An X-ray tube was installed on a movable stand so that it could easily be wheeled to the crucial area.
These mobile radiography units, known as “Little Curies,” treated an estimated one million soldiers. They stand as a testament to Curie’s monumental legacy both as a scientist and as an unflinching challenger of oppressive gender norms, her heroism all the more awe-inspiring in its cultural context.
The mobile X-ray units (now called “Les Petites Curie”) were off to a slow start, with bureaucrats forbidding women drivers and technicians to go to the front lines, but Madame Curie prevailed. Dressed in an alpaca coat with a Red Cross armband on the sleeve, she drove to field hospitals at twenty miles an hour. She quickly unloaded the equipment, hooked up a cable to the lightweight generator, covered the windows, unfolded the table, installed the ampoule, and activated the machine.
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The first woman to receive the Nobel Prize, Curie remains the only person ever awarded a Nobel in two different sciences. But, unbeknownst to most, she was also a humanitarian hero of unparalleled vision, determination, and courage. She also discovered 2 elements, Polonium and Radium
When France asked all citizens to donate their gold and silver to support the war effort, she offered to donate her prize medals. The offer was refused. A decade later, when World War I broke out, Curie responded not just with generosity but with actionable courage: She set out to mitigate the gruesome effects of the war using the X-ray technology which her own discoveries had made possible.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/12/14/marie-curie-ambulance-little-curies/
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Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness, her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified.
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes, the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends, till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil.
She died a famous woman, denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power.
https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/05/02/rosanne-cash-adrienne-rich-marie-curie/
