Accordingly, I proposed to the Health Service to add a department of radiology to the Nurses' School which had just been founded at the Edith Cavell Hospital. This they agreed to do. And so, in , the course was organized at the Radium Institute, and provided in the following years of war for the training of one hundred and fifty operators. Most of the pupils who applied had only an elementary education, but could succeed if working in a proper way. The course comprised theoretical studies and very extended practical training; it included also some instruction in anatomy. It was given by a few persons of good will, among them my daughter. Our graduates formed an excellent personnel very genuinely appreciated by the Board of Health. Theoretically, they were supposed to serve as aides to physicians, but several of them proved capable of independent work.
My continued and various experience in war radiology gave me a wide knowledge of that subject, which I felt should be made more familiar to the public. So I wrote a small book called "Radiology and the War," in which I aimed to demonstrate the vital importance of radiology and to compare its development during war time with its use in the previous time of peace.
I come now to the account of the founding of the service of radiumtherapy at the Radium Institute.
In , the radium, which had been safely deposited in Bordeaux, was brought back to Paris, and not having time for regular scientific research, I decided to use it to cure the wounded, without, however, risking the loss of this precious material. I proceeded to place at the disposal of the Health Service not the radium itself, but the emanation which can be obtained from it at regular intervals. The technique of the use of the emanation can readily be employed in the larger radiumtherapy institutes, and, in many ways, is more practicable than the direct use of radium. In France, however, there, was no national institute of radiumtherapy, and the emanation was not used in hospitals.
I offered to furnish regularly to the Health Service bulbs of radium emanation. The offer, was accepted, and the "Emanation Service," started in , was continued until the end of the war and even longer. Having no assistants, I had, for a long time, to prepare these emanation bulbs alone, and their preparation is very delicate. Numbers of wounded and sick, military and civil, were treated by means of these bulbs.
During the bombardment of Paris, the Health Board took special measures to protect from shells the laboratory in which the bulbs were prepared. Since the handling of radium is far from being free of danger (several times I have felt a discomfort which I consider a result of this cause), measures were taken to prevent harmful effects of the rays on the persons preparing emanation.
While the work in connection with the hospitals remained my major interest, I had many other preoccupations during the war.
After the failure of the German offensive in the summer of , at the request of the Italian government, I went to Italy to study the question of her natural resources in radioactive materials. I remained a month and was able to obtain certain results in interesting the public authorities in the importance of this new subject.
It was in that I had to move my laboratory to the new building in the rue Pierre Curie. This was a trying and complicated experience, for which, once more, I had no money nor any help. So it was only between my journeys that I was able, little by little, to do the transportation of my laboratory equipment, in my radiologic cars. Afterwards, I had much work in classifying and distributing my materials, and arranging the new place in general, with the help of my daughter and of my mechanic, who, unfortunately, was often ill.
