Why is the number 96 on your logo?

As we were developing the concept of Elemental Healing, we wanted to choose an element number that represented the vision of our philosophy, the types of issues we specialize in, and the clients that we serve.  We came across the story of Marie Curie and learned that, despite growing up in poverty, struggling with depression, fighting against sexism and racism, and experiencing numerous traumas, she persevered to become a pioneer in both chemistry and physics. Here’s her story!

Marie Curie was born and raised in Poland as the fifth child of intellectual parents who placed importance on academic achievement above all else. Her older sister died when she was 7 and her mother when she was 10.  Her father was never satisfied with Curie’s accomplishments and, as he was dying, said to her, “What a pity it is that [your] work has only theoretical interest.” 

Curie combined her scientific career with a fulfilling and devoted marriage to Pierre Curie, her scientific collaborator. Pierre was later killed in a street accident and the devastated Curie raised their two daughters alone. After Pierre’s death, she had a love affair with a married colleague, which led to a press scandal when her letters to him were released.  The press and her academic opponents took advantage of the scandal which fueled false speculation that Curie was Jewish and accusations that she was a “foreign, atheist home-wrecker.”

In the early part of the twentieth century when educational and professional opportunities for women were rare, Curie studied with the clandestine Flying University that admitted women and was the first woman to obtain a doctoral degree from Sorbonne University. She also discovered two elements, polonium (named after her home country) and radium, and coined the phrase “radioactivity.” Curie was the first woman to become a professor and eventually a department chair at the University of Paris. During World War I, she put her research on hold to provide humanitarian aid where she developed and dispersed a miniature x-ray machine to field hospitals. The “Little Curies” helped to effectively diagnose and treat casualties which prevented countless amputations and saved numerous lives. 

“Madame Curie” was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and one of only 2 people to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.

Her husband, Pierre Curie, was a co-winner of her first Nobel Prize, making them the first married couple to be awarded the Nobel Prize and launching the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. 

Most remarkably, Marie Curie was unable to achieve an unbiased understanding of the dangers posed by the radioactive elements she had discovered. While many of her contemporaries began to appreciate the increasingly apparent dangers of radioactivity and took precautions to protect themselves, Curie used her bare hands in her work and often pipetted by mouth. She even kept a vial of pure radium salts by her bedside to enjoy its “fairy-like glow.”

After her death, she was  buried alongside her husband Pierre near Paris. Sixty years later in honour of their achievements, the remains of both were transferred to the Paris Panthéon and sealed in a tomb with a lead lining because the Curies’ remains were still radioactive. Curie became the second woman to be interred at the Panthéon and the first woman to be honoured with interment in the Panthéon on her own merits.

Texted copied and adapted from: 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1087189/  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curienvestigation, 115(5), 1109. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI25145

Learn more in the biography by Barbara Goldsmith: Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie.