A Glimmer of Hope?

In 1898, Marie and Pierre Curie announced the discovery of a new radioactive element: radium. At the time, Marie was a doctorate student at the Sorbonne University and her husband Pierre was a professor at Paris’s École de physique et chimie (school of physics and chemistry). As part of her doctorate research, Marie Curie noticed that the amount of radiation emitted by pitchblende—a radioactive ore—was much higher than the presence of uranium alone could explain. She had discovered radium.

Black and white photograph of a laboratory with several scientific instruments on a table. Three people are seated at the table. Two men are standing facing the camera on the left and a woman is seated manipulating laboratory instruments on the left.

Henri Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie in their laboratory, date unknown

Black and white photograph of the facade of a three-story brick building with large dormer windows on the third floor. Above the entrance, it reads Université de Paris. The building is surrounded by a metal fence through which a vine grows.

Curie wing of the Paris Radium Institute, 1920s

It would take her and her husband four more years of hard work and several tons of pitchblende to isolate a pure sample of the new radioactive element. This technical prowess would turn the scientific world upside down. In 1903, the Curies and Henri Becquerel—who first discovered radioactivity—received the Nobel Prize in Physics.

But scientists were not the only ones interested in radium. The element’s ability to turn objects phosphorescent, while also slowing down the development of larvae and turning tadpoles into “monstrosities”, aroused broad public curiosity. Pharmaceutical companies and other entrepreneurs would take advantage of this new craze. Many products claiming to contain radium and boasting miraculous results—none of which were medically proven, of course—started popping up. In Maisonneuve, for example, a certain Daniel Bergevin commercialized in 1912 a product called “radium” water which he claimed had numerous medicinal properties.

Montage of two images. On the left, a newspaper advertisement for

(Left) Advertisement for a “Radium” water sold by Viauville Mineral Springs, 1913 (Right) Portrait of Daniel Bergevin, 1915

In the medical field, it was radium’s effectiveness in eliminating diseased tissue without surgery that attracted curiosity. In 1906, Doctor Louis Wickham, working at Paris’ newly inaugurated Laboratoire biologique du Radium, started studying the therapeutic effects of radium. In 1910, he published the results of his experiments in a book entitled Radiumthérapie. Encouraged by this progress, new research centres started popping up all around Europe.

Montage of two images. On the left, a black and white photograph of a man with a full mustache. On the right, the cover page of a medical book.

(Left) Portrait of Louis Frédéric Wickham (Right) Cover of the book Radiumthérapie, 1912

Montage of two black and white photographs. On the left is a five-story corner apartment building. On the right is a large four-story urban residence located on a small street.

(Left) Original Radiumhemmet in Sweden, 1910 (Right) London Radium Institute, 1925

Black and white photograph of a mustachioed man wearing a suit and tie. The photograph is bordered by an oval shape and the man's signed name in cursive letters is inscribed below: W. H. B. Aikins.

Portrait of William H. B. Aikins, 1907

Following his visits to this radiobiology laboratory in 1907, 1908 and 1909, Doctor William H. B. Aikins bought a small quantity of radium and founded the Radium Institute of Toronto. This was Canada’s first private clinic that specialized in radiotherapy. Back then, radium’s true effectiveness in treating various types of cancers was not fully understood. Still, many doctors believed that this was the missing piece in the effective treatment and perhaps even eradication of the disease.

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