madame curie (1867-1934). a biographyby eve curie; vincent sheean;pierre curie (1859-1906)by marie...

Madame Curie (1867-1934). A Biography by Eve Curie; Vincent Sheean; Pierre Curie (1859-1906)by Marie Curie; Charlotte Kellogg; Vernon Kellogg; Marie Sklodowska-Curie, 1867-1934 byClaudius RegaudReview by: George SartonIsis, Vol. 28, No. 2 (May, 1938), pp. 480-484Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/225710 .

Accessed: 08/05/2014 18:51

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Isis.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 18:51:19 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=hss

http://www.jstor.org/stable/225710?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


480 ISIS, XXVIII, 2

" Nov. 27, I75I. To Mr. KELLY'S again, having learnt that he would be at his rooms today. A very intriguing discourse on the structure of the Human Frame as revealed by the Microscope but could not understand the half of it. He did speak also of a Ladder of Nature, quoting one Baker, His Microscope Made Easy, of how the whole Chasm from a Plant to a Man, is filled up with divers kinds of creatures, rising one over another by such a gentle and easy ascent, that the little Transitions and Deviations from one Species to another are almost insensible to that the Scale of Life rising by degrees to such a one as Man we may equally suppose that it still proceeds upwards through

.numberless beings of an order superior to him to the Throne of the Father of all; to the which idea I did take very kindly and was pleased for once to find Mr. KELLY'S philosophy and mine so well agree; having wondered a little whether his microscope may not a little have addled his wits so that he aproaches the unreasoning state of the savage." (42-3).

The pattern of JOHN KNYVETON'S life during this one year recorded in his diary was variegated enough to last others a whole life-time. He died in I809; now more than one hundred years after his death he comes to life again in a form which, we think, will assure him a new and longer lease of life. It is a grand book as a story, but owing to the Editor's methods, the book is rendered practically valueless from the viewpoint of the student.

New York University. M. F. ASHLEY-MONTAGU.

Eve Curie.-Madame Curie (I867-1934). A biography. Translated by VINCENT SHEEAN. Illustrated. xi+393 p. Garden City, New York, DOUBLEDAY, DORAN, I937 ($ 3.50).

Marie Curie.-Pierre Curie (I859-I906). Translated by CHARLOTTE

and VERNON KELLOGG. With an introduction by Mrs. WILLIAM

BROWN MELONEY and autobiographical notes by MARIE CURIE. Illustrated. 242 p. New Yolk, MACMILLAN, Ii932.

Claudius Regaud.-Marie Sklodowska-Curie, I867-I934. 30 p., 2 illus. Paris, Fondation Curie, I934.

The publication of Mlle CURIE'S splendid biography of her mother brings back to our mind the almost incredible events which revolutionized scientific thought at the end of last century. First ROENTGEN'S discovery of the x-rays at the very end of the year I895; see my study ad hoc and the facsimile of his paper (Isis 26, 349-69, 1937) ; then in I896, the discovery of uranic rays by HENRI BECQUEREL (I852-I908), finally the discovery of polonium announced by PIERRE and MARIE CURIE on July i8, I898, and that of radium announced by them and their collaborator BilioNr, on Dec. 26 of the same year. All of that in three



e_l _ ., l | l - * | - - -

___-- _ ! _ | _ _

_ _

_ l _ _ _ _11i1 111 i _E _ | | _E _ _ _

* | i _ | l l _ __ _

11|_ * l i I _ _ _ 1|1_ | | _ _

_ | I | . _ | l _ _ _

_|1 | l | _ == _ . . | l _ . . I _ | | | l I _ __ _ l l l _ l ^ _ _ l | l l _ _ _

_ l l _ _ _ _ | | l _ _ _

_ I _ I 1E _ _ _ l _ I _ _

_ l I _ _ _ .

l

l ! le _ _

. Q t/G'' , A; .,

Isis, XXVIII (2), P1. IO. G. SARTON



-~~~~~~~ ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ....... .:..'..

MARIE CURIE

I867- I934

Isis, XXVIII (2), P1. II. G. SARTON



REVIEWS 48I

years! The sluices were now wide open and an endless series of other discoveries and inventions marked the rapid growth of radiology and radiotherapy, and transformed physics and chemistry down to their foundations. Indeed the minds of scientists had been so deeply impressed that most of them, at least the younger ones, had no great difficulty in accepting other startling innovations, such as the theories of quanta and of relativity, the ideas of isotopes and of the transmutation of elements.

The discovery of radium was unique not only in its importance, but also in its having been made by two scientists, man and wife, working so closely together that the share of each cannot be determined.

" We cannot and must not attempt to find out what should be credited to MARIE and what to PIERRE during these eight years (i). It would be exactly what the husband and wife did not want. The personal genius of PiERRE CURIE is known to us by the original work he had accomplished before this collaboration. His wife's genius appears to us in the first intuition of discovery, the brilliant start; and it was to reappear to us again, solitary, when MARIE CURIE the widow unflinchingly carried the weight of a new science and conducted it, through research, step by step, to its harmonious expansion. We therefore have formal proof that in the fusion of their two efforts, in this superior alliance of man and woman, the exchange was equal." (p. 159).

The conjuncture which brought together from two very distant points (Paris and Warsaw) these two individuals, as similar as they were rare, is truly miraculous. Though brought up far apart and in very different ways, they were as alike, with regard to essentials, as two individuals can possibly be. Their rationalism, their passionate love of truth and of science, their indifference to money and fame, their innate austerity were equally deep and genuine. Thus when she wrote the life of her husband in 1924 (z), it was easy for her to delineate his character, and she did it admirably. Her biography of him is a model of clearness and brevity, severely simple yet very moving for whoever can read between the lines.

" In our life together," does she say (p. 88), " it was given to me to know him as he had hoped I might, and to penetrate each day further into his thought. He was as much and much more than all I had dreamed at the time of our union. My admiration of his unusual qualities grew continually; he lived on a plane

(i) That is, from May or June I898 to PIERRE's accidental death in I906. MARIE survived PIERRE, and continued their work twenty-eight more years. (G. S.)

(2) Mme CURIE: PIERRE CURIE (II2 p., PAYOT, Paris, 1924; Isis 7, 232). That is the book translated into English by the KELLOGGS (New York I932); the translation includes autobiographical reminiscences of MARIE CURIE, which did not appear in the French book.



482 isis, xxviii, 2

80 rare and so elevated that he sometimes seemed to me a being unique in his freedom from all vanity and from the littlenesses that one discovers in oneself and in others, and which one judges with indulgence although aspiring to a more perfect ideal."

" I have attempted to evoke the image of a man who, inflexibly devoted to the service of his ideal, honored humanity by an existence lived in silence, in the simple grandeur of his genius and his character. He had the faith of those who open new ways. He knew that he had a high mission to fulfil and the mystic dream of his youth pushed him invincibly beyond the usual path of life into a way which he called anti-natural because it signified the renunciation of the pleasures of life. Nevertheless, he resolutely subordinated his thoughts and desires to this dream, adapting himself to it and identifying himself with it more and more completely. Believing only in the pacific might of science and of reason, he lived for the search of truth. Without prejudice or parti pris, he carried the same loyalty into his study of things that he used in his understanding of other men and of himself." (p. 143).

And to these judgments we may add that of HENRI POINCARE, as quoted in EVE CURIE'S book (p. 25I) (3):

"Who could have believed that so much gentleness concealed an uncom- promising soul? He did not compromise with the generous principles upon which he had been nourished, or with the special moral ideal he had been taught to love, that ideal of absolute sincerity, too high, perhaps, for the world in which we live. He did not know the thousand little accommodations with which our weakness contents itself. He did not separate the cult of this ideal from that which he rendered to science, and he has shown us by a brilliant example what a high conception of duty can come out of the simple and pure love of truth. It matters little what god one believes in; it is the faith, and not the god, that makes miracles."

When the discovery of radium brought them sudden fame they were utterly unprepared for it, not only because of their deeprooted opinions and prejudices, and their need of time and solitude, but also because of their exhaustion. After the death of her husband in a stupid accident (April i9, I906), MARIE remained a " pitiful and incurably lonely woman " and her distaste for fame and all the servitudes which it entails, her contempt for many of the social conventions which enslave so many men, increased to a dangerous point. Many French scientists disliked her; they said she was cold and dry (4). If we define a " good fellow," a man who shares not so much the convictions of his neighbours, as their attitudes, superstitions and prejudices, their likes and dislikes, and their vanities, a man who can laugh and gossip with them, then neither PIERRE nor MARIE were good fellows. It is true after the war

(3) For the original see POINCARA'S Savants et ecrivains (70, Paris, I9IO).

(4) I am not inventing this. Statements to that effect have been made to me or in my presence by distinguished Frenchmen.



REVIEWS 483

some happy holidays with her children and friends in Larcouest (5) and in Cavalaire brought her a new serenity and renewed joys such as she had experienced as a child in rural Poland, or as a young wife cycling with her husband across France. Yet even then the excessive work of thirty years began to tell on her strong organism, which had been insidiously weakened by accumulated radiations. Thus when her soul was ready again to enjoy life, or at least readier, her body broke down. Her visits to Sweden and America, however pleasant, were too much for her remaining strength.

In her autobiographical notes, she concluded:

" Humanity certainly needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without the slightest doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research." (p. 336). (6)

Mme CURIE left two daughters, the elder of whom, IRENE, followed in her parents, footsteps, and has already secured her own fame together with her husband FREDERIC JOLIOT (they obtained a Nobel prize together in I935, this being the third Nobel prize in the CURIE family) (7); the younger, EvE, a pianist and musical critic, has now established her own survival by means of this biography. Indeed it is excellent; it is beau- tifully written and contains the precious information which only one who actually shared MARIE'S life could have given, yet it is restrained and sufficiently objective. It is a biography rather than a scientific study of her parents' achievements and of their repercussions, but that can be found elsewhere. For a brief but clear account of MAIuE SKLODOWSKA-CURIE'S work I recommend the notice written by Dr. CLAUDIUS REGAUD, who was her main collaborator on the medical side.

Thanks to EVE CURIE'S book it is possible to realize that her father and mother were not only great scientists but very great individuals, whose moral stature is comparable to that of FARADAY and DARWIN. Men combining intellectual power with moral nobility to such a degree are

(5) An unknown and unspoiled place .in Brittany, which had been discovered in I895 by the historian CHARLES SEIGNOBOS and the biologist Louis LAPICQUE.

(6) I quote the SHEAN translation rather than the KELLOGGS' (P. 227 of their book).

(7) MARY ELVIRA WEEKs: M. and Mme JOLIOT-CURIE (Kansas City, I936; Isis 26, 534).



484 ISIS, XXVIII, 2

exceedingly rare, and their lives should be read in the same spirit as people read the lives of the saints. I will expect my Harvard and Radcliffe students to read and ruminate the lives of PIERRE and MARIE

CURIE; it may awaken in them, if it be there, the love of truth and the love of science.

Note on the two portraits published with this review. The portrait of PIERRE CURIE represents him. at the very end of his life, at the age of 46 or 47. It was the portrait which his wife liked best and which she caused to appear as frontispiece to the " CEuvres de PIERRE CURIE,"

published in i908 (Paris, GAUTHIER-VILLARS, xxii+622 p.) by the "Societe frangaise de physique," with a very beautiful preface written by herself.

The portrait of Mme CUIuE was received by me in I924; hence it represents her at the age of 57 or younger. GEORGE SARTON.

Louis-Ferdinand C61ine. - Mea Culpa & The Life and Work of Semmelweis. xxiv + 175 pag. Translated from the French with an Introduction by ROBERT ALLERTON PARKER, Boston: LITTLE,

BROWN & Co., I937, ($ .o00).

The present volume consists of two distinct works, the first is devoted to a typically Celinese indictment of the human spirit in some 6700 words with particular reference to the U.S.S.R. where the author recently visited; the second part of the volume is devoted to The Life and Work of Ignaz Semmelweis (i8I8-i865), being the author's thesis as presented for the Doctorat en Medecine to the Faculty of Medicine of the Uni- versity of Rennes, and accepted and awarded the gold medal by that faculty in 1924.

The author of these two writings is one of the most remarkable fi- gures of our day. His Voyage au bout de la nuit, published in Paris in 1932, created a rare sensation in the literary world. His recent Mort a crddit has entrenched his reputation as one of the. most sensationally interesting writers of our time. CiLINE'S object is to shock. In this he succeeds so well that some have not hesitated to call him mad. CALINE himself has stated that the combined effects of head shrapnel and shell- shock have left him with a neurosis; but mad? 'Mad' is one of those epithets which persons of limited imagination have always been pleased to hurl at the heads of those for whose work they have had an irrational objection. If CILINE be mad it were well for the world if it had a few more such madmen.

To the humanist CALINE'S view of human nature is most interesting; his craftsmanship in presenting that view may be admired or not, but no one could leave his work without feeling something of its effectiveness.



madame curie (1867-1934). a biographyby eve curie; vincent sheean;pierre curie (1859-1906)by marie...

Documents