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During the First World War Marie Curie fitted cars with X-ray equipment and took them to field hospitals near the front, sometimes at the wheel herself, so surgeons could see bullets, shell fragments and broken bones inside wounded soldiers. The cars became known as 'petites Curies', little Curies.

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When the war began in 1914, X-ray machines were found mainly in city hospitals, far from where soldiers were wounded. Curie studied radiology, anatomy and car mechanics, learned to drive, and gathered X-ray equipment, vehicles and generators. As director of the Red Cross radiology service she equipped 20 mobile units and oversaw about 200 fixed X-ray rooms in field hospitals. Her 17-year-old daughter Irène worked beside her, and Curie trained 150 women to operate the machines. More than a million wounded soldiers are estimated to have been X-rayed during the war, yet the French government never formally recognised her work. Years of exposure to radiation, in the laboratory and at the front, are thought to have caused the aplastic anaemia, a failure of the bone marrow to make blood cells, that killed her in 1934.

Türkçe oku
Birinci Dünya Savaşı'nda Marie Curie, otomobillere röntgen cihazları yerleştirip onları cepheye yakın sahra hastanelerine götürdü; zaman zaman direksiyona kendisi geçti. Böylece cerrahlar yaralı askerlerin vücudundaki kurşunları, şarapnel parçalarını ve kırıkları görebildi. Bu araçlara “küçük Curie'ler” (petites Curies) adı verildi.

Savaş 1914'te başladığında röntgen cihazları çoğunlukla kentlerdeki hastanelerde, yani askerlerin yaralandığı yerlerden çok uzakta bulunuyordu. Curie radyoloji, anatomi ve otomobil mekaniği çalıştı, araba kullanmayı öğrendi; röntgen cihazları, araçlar ve jeneratörler buldu. Kızılhaç'ın radyoloji hizmetini yönetirken 20 seyyar röntgen birimini donattı, sahra hastanelerinde de 200 kadar sabit röntgen odasının kurulmasına önderlik etti. On yedi yaşındaki kızı Irène yanında çalıştı; Curie cihazları kullanmaları için 150 kadını yetiştirdi. Savaş boyunca bir milyondan fazla yaralı askerin röntgeninin çekildiği tahmin ediliyor; buna karşın Fransız hükümeti bu çalışmayı hiçbir zaman resmî olarak takdir etmedi. Laboratuvarda ve cephede yıllarca maruz kaldığı ışınımın, 1934'te ölümüne yol açan aplastik anemiye, yani kemik iliğinin kan hücresi üretememesine neden olduğu düşünülüyor.

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Background reading: Marie Curie
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