The Discovery of Radium / Address by Madame M. Curie at Vassar College

The speaker recounts early laboratory investigations of uranium and thorium emissions, describing methods used to detect radioactivity—photographic plates and electroscope measurements—and the decision to search minerals for unknown, more active elements. Years of chemically separating ores under difficult conditions yielded a highly radioactive element isolated as a chloride and later as a metal. The narrative explains the element's vastly stronger radiation, its physiological effects and promising medical applications such as cancer treatment, the high cost and industrial efforts to produce larger quantities, and a defense of pure scientific inquiry as the source of eventual practical benefit.