Book Review - The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science

The Elements of Marie Curie: How the Glow of Radium Lit a Path for Women in Science by Dava Sobel. 2024. Atlantic Monthly Press, NY. ISBN 978-08021-6382-0

Marya Sklodowska, born Nov. 7, 1867, was without doubt the most famous woman in science in her time and remains so to this day. Those who do not recognize names like Rosalind Franklin (DNA) and Jocelyn Bell (quasars) have heard of Marie Curie. An excellent biography by Susan Quinn appeared in 1995 and now comes another, by a writer as luminous as Marie’s radium - Dava Sobel. Her previous books include The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars and Galileo’s Daughter, among several other publications.

Sobel charts out Curie’s life along three lines. One is the strictly biographical one, powerfully engaging on its own. The second of course is her pathfinding work on radiation and radioactive elements, resulting in two Nobel Prizes. But the third is the author’s clever design of the book. The reader discovers that the “elements” in the book’s subtitle are of two kinds. On the one hand, these are the various atomic elements with which Curie worked, most famously radium and polonium but also others. But the other “elements” are, one by one, the many gifted women scientists who came to Curie’s lab and whom she trained and mentored into successful careers of their own. This was a brilliant stroke of the author, as was “naming” each chapter for an element in honor of the Curie lab trainee described therein.

For a review in Worcester Medicine (or in any other place with a medical readership) it is worth thinking about Curie’s radiation exposure. The energy from radium and polonium is not strong enough to penetrate human skin, but one decay product of the former, radon-222, itself radioactive, is a gas, and thus upon inhalation reaches the lungs. Curie did suffer respiratory distress most of her adult life. But the more telling scenario is her X-ray exposure. Well after the zenith of her fame, during World War I, she got the idea that if mobile X-ray machines could be driven to the front lines, battlefield physicians and surgeons could make immediate treatment decisions, long before the wounded soldier could otherwise be transported to a hospital. She constructed and deployed these mobile X-ray machines and, near the end of her life, speculated that it was this X-ray exposure, not her work with radioactive elements, which had caused her aplastic anemia, the cause of her death. Always a champion of peace and justice, she had put her life on the battlefield on behalf of her adopted country, France. Thus, possibly putting her life in danger—a noble act for a twice Nobel laureate.

The radical Abby Hoffman, who in his early years lived less than a mile from where I am writing this, said “Buy or steal this book.” I suggest considering the former.

Thoru Pederson, PhD, is the Arnett Professor of Cell Biology and Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology at UMass Chan Medical School. Email: thoru.pederson@umassmed.edu