Chemists -- France -- Biography; Curie, Pierre, 1859-1906; Physicists -- France -- Biography
The first experiments on the biological properties of radium were
successfully made in France with samples from our laboratory, while my
husband was living. The results were, at once, encouraging, so that the
new branch of medical science, called radiumtherapy (in France,
_Curietherapy_), developed rapidly, first in France and later in other
countries. To supply the radium wanted for this purpose, a
radium-producing industry was established. The first plant was created
in France and worked very successfully, but afterwards manufactures were
founded in other countries, the most important of which are now in
America, where great quantities of radium ore, named "carnotite," are
available. The radiumtherapy and the radium production developed
conjointly, and the results were more and more important, for the
treatment of several diseases, and particularly of cancer. As a
consequence of this, several institutes have been founded, in the large
cities, for the application of the new therapy. Some of these institutes
own several grammes of radium, the commercial price of the gramme being
now about $70,000, the cost of production depending on the very small
proportion of radium in the ore.
It may be easily understood how deeply I appreciated the privilege of
realizing that our discovery had become a benefit to mankind, not only
through its great scientific importance, but also by its power of
efficient action against human suffering and terrible disease. This was
indeed a splendid reward for our years of hard toil.
The success of the therapy depends, of course, on the precise knowledge
of the quantity of radium which is used, so that the measurements of
radium are as important for industry and for medicine as for
physicochemical research.
Considering all these needs, a commission of scientific men of different
countries was formed who agreed to take as a base an international
standard, formed of a carefully weighed quantity of pure radium salt.
Secondary standards were then to be prepared for each country, and
compared to the basic standard by means of their radiation. I was
appointed to prepare the primary standard.
This was a very delicate operation, as the weight of the standard
sample, quite small (about 21 milligrammes of chloride), had to be
determined with great precision. I performed the preparation in 1911.
The standard is a thin glass tube, of a few centimeters in length,
containing the pure salt which was used for the determination of atomic
weight. It was accepted by the Commission and is deposited in the
International Bureau of Weights and Measures at Sèvres, near Paris.
Several secondary standards, compared with the primary one, have been
put into service by the Commission. In France the control of radium
tubes, by the measurement of their radiation, takes place in my
laboratory, where any one may bring the radium to be tested; in the
United States this is done in the Bureau of Standards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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