CHAPTER V 



THE DISCOVERERS OF RADIUM 



The Story of the Curies 



THERE is no such thing as pure radium. The 

 metal can be isolated, of course, but if that is 

 done it almost immediately forms a compound 

 again. Radium resembles sodium in having such a fierce 

 affinity for oxygen that when isolated it is at once 

 oxidized by the air. What is generally referred to as 

 radium is actually chloride of radium. It resembles 

 small crystals of common salt which may be crushed into 

 a fine powder, but it is so powerful and terribly destruc- 

 tive a substance that it has to be kept in a glass tube 

 wrapped with lead foil. Lead is impervious to the rays 

 emitted by radium, but glass alone is not. 



The story of Becquerel's burn illustrates the tremendous 

 potency of radium. Some little time after Mme Curie 

 had succeeded in extracting small quantities of radium 

 salts from the mineral pitchblende, M. Becquerel, the 

 original discoverer of radio-activity, visited London. He 

 carried in a waistcoat pocket a little glass tube containing 

 a mere speck of the newly found substance, a speck little 

 larger than the head of a pin. It was so precious that he 

 kept the tube always about his person. 



In about ten days' time he became aware of a sore spot 

 on his side exactly where the radium tube pressed against 

 it, and he found that this place was actually burned. The 

 rays emitted had destroyed some of the cells of his flesh. 

 Despite the best medical attention, the deep and painful 

 sore thus caused took weeks to heal. 



It has been found that a tube of radium suspended a 



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