How Marie Curie Helped Save a Million Soldiers During World ... | 合法醫療器材資訊網

2016年2月1日—MarieCurieinavehiclewithX-raymachinesforthebattlefieldduringWorldWar.Photo:OxfordScienceArchive/PrintCollector/GettyImages ...

THE INSTITUTEBy 1914 Marie Skłodowska Curie[1] had already made several pioneering contributions to the field of radioactivity, including discovering the radioactive elements radium and polonium. When World War I broke out in Europe that year, Curie saw a way to apply her expertise to help save the lives of wounded soldiers.

She realized that the electromagnetic radiation of X-rays could help doctors see the bullets and shrapnel embedded in the soldiers’ bodies and remove them, as well as locate broken bones. Many hospitals in France already had X-ray equipment, but those machines were often far from the battlefield.

To move the technology closer to the soldiers, Curie and her daughter amassed a fleet of vehicles equipped with X-ray machines and set up 200 radiological units in more permanent posts during the first two years of the war.

Curie, ...