Chemists -- France -- Biography; Curie, Pierre, 1859-1906; Physicists -- France -- Biography
Notes on the apparatus for the determination of
magnetic constants (in common with C. Cheneveau).
All these investigations in radioactivity are fundamental and touch very
varied subjects. Several have as their aim the study of the emanation,
that strange gaseous body that radium produces and which is largely
responsible for the intense radiation commonly attributed to the radium
itself. Pierre Curie demonstrated by a searching examination the
rigorous and invariable law according to which the emanation destroys
itself, no matter what the conditions are in which it finds itself.
To-day the emanation of radium, harvested in tiny phials, is commonly
employed by physicians as a therapeutic agent. Technical considerations
make its employment preferable to the direct use of radium, and in this
case no physician can proceed without consulting the numerical chart
which tells how much of this emanation has disappeared each day, despite
the fact that it is cloistered in its little glass prison. It is this
same emanation that is found in small quantities in mineral waters, and
that plays a part in their curative effects.
More striking still was the discovery of the discharge of heat from
radium. Without any alteration in appearance this substance releases
each hour a quantity of heat sufficient to melt its own weight of ice.
When well protected against this external loss, radium heats itself. Its
temperature can rise 10 degrees or more above that of the surrounding
atmosphere. This defied all contemporary scientific experience.
Finally, I cannot pass in silence, because of their various
repercussions, the experiments connected with the physiological effects
of radium.
In order to test the results that had just been announced by F. Giesel,
Pierre Curie voluntarily exposed his arm to the action of radium during
several hours. This resulted in a lesion resembling a burn, that
developed progressively and required several months to heal. Henri
Becquerel had by accident a similar burn as a result of carrying in his
vest pocket a glass tube containing radium salt. He came to tell us of
this evil effect of radium, exclaiming in a manner at once delighted and
annoyed: "I love it, but I owe it a grudge!"
Since he realized the interest in these physiological effects of radium,
Pierre Curie undertook, in collaboration with physicians, the
investigations to which I have just referred, submitting animals to the
action of radium emanation. These studies formed the point of departure
in radium therapy. The first attempts at treatment with radium were made
with products loaned by Pierre Curie, and had as their object the cure
of lupus and other skin lesions. Thus radium therapy, an important
branch of medicine, and frequently designated as _Curietherapie_, was
born in France, and was developed first through the investigations of
French physicians (Danlos, Oudin, Wickham, Dominici, Cheron, Degrais,
and others).[11]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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