Remembering a Veteran: Marie Curie, French Army Medical Service

Nobel Laureate Marie Curie Driving a Mobile X-Ray Unit

From Smithsonian magazine

During World War I, the scientist invented a mobile x-ray unit, called a “Little Curie,” and trained 150 women to operate it.  For Curie, the war started in early 1914, as German troops headed toward her hometown of Paris. She knew her scientific research needed to be put on hold. So she gathered her entire stock of radium, put it in a lead-lined container, transported it by train to Bordeaux—375 miles away from Paris—and left it in a safe deposit box at a local bank. She then returned to Paris, confident that she would reclaim her radium after France had won the war.

With the subject of her life’s work hidden far away, she now needed something else to do. Rather than flee the turmoil, she decided to join in the fight. But just how could a middle-aged woman do that? She decided to redirect her scientific skills toward the war effort—not to make weapons but to save lives.

At the start of the war, X-ray machines were still found only in city hospitals, far from the battlefields where wounded troops were being treated. Curie’s solution was to invent the first “radiological car”—a vehicle containing an X-ray machine and photographic darkroom equipment—which could be driven right up to the battlefield where army surgeons could use X-rays to guide their surgeries.

One major obstacle was the need for electrical power to produce the X-rays. Curie solved that problem by incorporating a dynamo—a type of electrical generator—into the car’s design. The petroleum-powered car engine could thus provide the required electricity.

Frustrated by delays in getting funding from the French military, Curie approached the Union of Women of France. This philanthropic organization gave her the money needed to produce the first car, which ended up playing an important role in treating the wounded at the Battle of Marne in 1914—a major Allied victory that kept the Germans from entering Paris.

More radiological cars were needed. So Curie exploited her scientific clout to ask wealthy Parisian women to donate vehicles. Soon she had 20, which she outfitted with X-ray equipment. But the cars were useless without trained X-ray operators, so Curie started to train women volunteers. She recruited 20 women for the first training course, which she taught along with her daughter Irene, a future Nobel Prize winner herself.

Read more on Marie Curie's war service at Smithsonian Magazine.