Editing Marie Curie (section)

=== World War I ===
[[File:Marie Curie - Mobile X-Ray-Unit.jpg|thumb|Curie in a mobile X-ray vehicle, {{circa|1915|lk=no}}|alt=]]

During [[World War I]], Curie recognised that wounded soldiers were best served if operated upon as soon as possible.<ref name="Coppes-Zantinga1998">{{cite journal |title=Marie Curie's contributions to radiology during World War I |year=1998 |last1=Coppes-Zantinga |first1=Arty R. |last2=Coppes |first2=Max J. |journal=Medical and Pediatric Oncology |volume=31 |issue=6 |pages=541–543 |pmid=9835914 |doi=10.1002/(SICI)1096-911X(199812)31:6<541::AID-MPO19>3.0.CO;2-0}}</ref> She saw a need for field radiological centres near the front lines to assist battlefield surgeons,<ref name="Marie Curie War" /> including to obviate amputations when in fact limbs could be saved.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-film-radioactive-shows-how-marie-curie-was-a-woman-of-the-future/ |title=The Film ''Radioactive'' Shows How Marie Curie Was a 'Woman of the Future' |last=Russell |first=Cristine |date=9 August 2020 |magazine=[[Scientific American]] |access-date=24 October 2020 |archive-date=11 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210211003554/https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-film-radioactive-shows-how-marie-curie-was-a-woman-of-the-future/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>''Radioactive'', the movie</ref> After a quick study of radiology, anatomy, and automotive mechanics, she procured X-ray equipment, vehicles, and auxiliary generators, and she developed mobile [[radiography]] units, which came to be popularly known as {{lang|fr|petites Curies}} ("Little Curies").<ref name="Marie Curie War" /> She became the director of the [[Red Cross]] Radiology Service and set up France's first military radiology centre, operational by late 1914.<ref name="Marie Curie War" /> Assisted at first by a military doctor and her 17-year-old daughter [[Irène Joliot-Curie|Irène]], Curie directed the installation of 20 mobile radiological vehicles and another 200 radiological units at field hospitals in the first year of the war.<ref name="Estreicher1938c" /><ref name="Marie Curie War" /> Later, she began training other women as aides.<ref name="Marie Curie War2" />

In 1915, Curie produced hollow needles containing "radium emanation", a colourless, radioactive gas given off by radium, later identified as [[radon]], to be used for sterilising infected tissue. She provided the radium from her own one-gram supply.<ref name="Marie Curie War2" /> It is estimated that over a million wounded soldiers were treated with her X-ray units.<ref name="Reid1974a" /><ref name="Estreicher1938c" /> Busy with this work, she carried out very little scientific research during that period.<ref name="Estreicher1938c" /> In spite of all her humanitarian contributions to the French war effort, Curie never received any formal recognition of it from the French government.<ref name="Marie Curie War" />

Also, promptly after the war started, she attempted to donate her gold Nobel Prize medals to the war effort but the [[Banque de France|French National Bank]] refused to accept them.<ref name="Marie Curie War2" />  She did buy [[war bonds]], using her Nobel Prize money.<ref name="Marie Curie War2" /> She said:

{{blockquote|I am going to give up the little gold I possess. I shall add to this the scientific medals, which are quite useless to me. There is something else: by sheer laziness I had allowed the money for my second Nobel Prize to remain in Stockholm in Swedish crowns. This is the chief part of what we possess. I should like to bring it back here and invest it in war loans. The state needs it. Only, I have no illusions: this money will probably be lost.<ref name="Coppes-Zantinga1998" /> }}

She was also an active member in committees of [[Poles in France]] dedicated to the Polish cause.<ref name="Śladkowski1980" /> After the war, she summarised her wartime experiences in a book, ''Radiology in War'' (1919).<ref name="Marie Curie War2" />