In 1902 she produced a decigram of reasonably pure radium.
The discoverer of any new element -has a permanent title -to fame : the discoverers of so rare and utterly astonishing a substance as radium were ipso facto immortals. The world was not slow to yield them honours, to which they were indiff- erent, but it was shamefully tardy in providing them with the one thing they desired—facilities for research. In 1906 fell the blow which profoundly altered Mme. Curie's life. Pierre Curie was run over and instantly killed. Bve Curie gives us the impression that *after his death her mother lived only in her work, the great results of which can be expressed only in technical terms. For this reason her years of achievement are but lightly treated in this biography, She created and controlled the Radium Institute from which issued a vast body of research ; during the War she did most valbable work in X-ray diagnosis. She was loaded with honours. Twice a Nobel prizewinner, recipient of medals, degrees and the like from more than a hundred learned insti- tutions, she who sought Fame least, received it in fullest measure. It happened that the substance she discovered dazzled the world by its utterly novel properties and its power of attacking the grim enemy, cancer ; but had her research led her to discover; instead of radium, some obscure and useless rare-earth element, she would have given herself to Science
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