Signed by “Le Directeur du Laboratoire”
Document signed.
Folio (213 x 307 mm). 1 p. Printed form, filled in by a different hand.
€ 12.500,00
“Certificat No. 6.443. Dosage de Radium par le Rayonnement Gamma”, issued by the "Institut du Radium, Laboratoire Curie" for a sample tube containing 60.15 mg of elemental radium sent for testing from Radium Belge, a factory that produced radium sources for therapy using ore mined in the Congo. The results indicate that the gamma rays of the sample are equivalent to those of 54.69 mg of elemental radium. Marie Curie signs this receipt for radium as “Le Directeur du Laboratoire”.
A poignant document of the seemingly mundane assaying work carried out in the Curie Laboratory, a task intimately connected with the discovery of the nuclear atom, modern cancer therapy, and Curie's own fate as a pioneer: habitually carrying test tubes in her pockets, she became a victim of radiation exposure which led to her eventually developing and dying from aplastic anemia. Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person to win a Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
Minor soiling.
