Chemists -- France -- Biography; Curie, Pierre, 1859-1906; Physicists -- France -- Biography
I could not have accomplished this work without seeing for myself the
needs of the ambulance stations and hospitals. Thanks to the help of the
Red Cross and to the agreement of the Board of Health, I was able to
make several journeys to the army zones and to the other parts of
France. Several times I visited the ambulance stations of the armies of
the north and in the Belgian zone, going to Amiens, Calais, Dunkirk,
Furnes, and Poperinghe. I went to Verdun, Nancy, Luneville, Belfort, to
Compiegne, and Villers-Cotterets. In the regions distant from the front,
I took care of many hospitals which had to do very intensive work with
little aid. And I keep as a precious recollection of that time, many
letters of warm recognition from those to whom I brought help in their
difficulties.
The motive of my starting on a journey was usually a demand from
surgeons. I went with a radiologic car which I kept for my personal use.
In examining the wounded in the hospital, I could gain information of
the special needs of the region. When back in Paris, I got the necessary
equipment to meet these needs and returned to install it myself, for
very often the people on the ground could not do it. I had then to find
competent persons to handle the apparatus and show them how to do it, in
full detail. After a few days of hard toil, the manipulator knew enough
to work the apparatus himself, and at the same time a large number of
wounded had been examined. In addition, the surgeons of the region had
gained an idea of the usefulness of the radiologic examination (which
few of them knew at that time), and friendly relations were established
which made the later development of my work much easier.
On several of my trips I was accompanied by my elder daughter, Irene,
who was then seventeen years old, and, having finished her preparatory
studies, was beginning higher studies at the Sorbonne. Because she
greatly desired to be useful, she now studied nursing and learned
radiology, and did her best to help me under the most varied
circumstances. She did ambulance work at the front between Furnes and
Ypres, and also at Amiens, receiving, from the Chiefs of Service,
testimonials of work satisfactorily performed and, at the end of the
war, a medal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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