Beschreibung:

CURIE, Marie [nee Manya Sklodowska] (1867-1934), Scientist . Autograph letter signed ("M. Curie") to an unknown recipient, Paris, 23 March 1915. 3½ pages, 8vo, in French, in fine condition. IN THE MIDST OF WORLD WAR I, MARIE CURIE EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER HER FAMILY IN POLAND Four years after winning an unprecendented second Nobel Prize in chemistry for the discovery of polonium and radium, and for the isolation of radium, Curie writes to an unknown correspondant in Switzerland in an attempt to make contact with her Polish family as the World War raged across Europe. The Polish-born scientist had been the first woman to earn a doctorate (in Physics) at the Sorbonne in 1893, and a second in mathematics the following year. She married Pierre Curie (1859-1906) and as a team, they pursued research into a recently observed and little-understood phenomenon, natural radiation, for which Curie coined the term radioactivity in 1898. The Curies and Henri Becquerel jointly received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of radium. In 1906, after Pierre's death, Marie assumed his professorship at Sorbonne, becoming the first female lecturer at the prestigious university. When war broke out with Germany in 1914, she dedicated her efforts to develop the use of X-rays by military doctors. Here, as German forces stood within 60 miles of Paris, she writes to a colleague, telling of the impact of the war upon her staff, friends and students: "Yet another doctor would like to take advantage of your kindness and obtain news of his wife and children from whom he has been separated since the occupation of Lille...If you can find out something about them, please be kind enough to write and let me know...All of our friends are about the same as usual. Your young students are in good health and going to school. Jean is living with his father and they both get on well. Mr. Laurent Gerin was mobilized, but he will probably be used in Paris in the Ministry of the Navy. Mr. Malfolane has returned to Paris and must go to Toulouse to work in an institute for serum production." In early October of 1914, Austrian and German forces had invaded Poland and Curie expresses concern about her family residing there: "I do not have any news of my family in Poland, and this worries me. I am enclosing a card for my sister with this letter and asking you to send it to her...Could you send me some postcards from Switzerland that I could then send to my sister in letters that I would send to you? Perhaps they would arrive more easily than the others." Curie's wartime efforts to perfect and make available to the military X-ray technology was a highly significant contribution, and saved innumerable lives. After the war, she returning to the Paris-based Radium Institute, which she headed until her death. She is unquestionably one of the most influential scientists of the early 20th century.