A Wonderful Stimulant: RADIUM, RISK, AND RESPONSIBILITY

In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie were working in a Parisian laboratory so dilapidated that another scientist would compare it to “a cross between a stable and a potato shed.” Marie, still a doctoral student, had recently found traces of an intensely radioactive new substance, but the Curies would have to process tons of ore to isolate it. It was hard physical labor— Marie sometimes spent entire days stirring a boiling cauldron with a heavy iron rod. That December they announced the discovery of a new element they called radium. It was a fascinating, history-making discovery. Radium was a million