Pierre Curie was Laboratory Chief in charge of all practical work at The City of Paris Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Education Institution (ESPCI). Marya Skłodowska[1] was searching for lab space to do a study for which she was retained by the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry[2] relating the magnetic properties of various steels to their chemical composition. She had secured space for her work in the laboratory of Gabriel Lippmann[3]; however, his lab was crowded making her…

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“It would be a beautiful thing, a thing I dare not hope, if we could spend our life near each other,hypnotized by our dreams:  your patriotic dream, our humanitarian dream, and our scientific dream.We can aspire to accomplish something … every discovery, however small, is a permanent gain.”~Pierre Curie, in a letter to Maria Skłodowska When it comes to power teams in the laboratory, there is perhaps no other couple more widely known than Pierre and Marie Curie, who came…

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Part 1: Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze Lavoisier “Dans la nature rien ne se crée, rien ne se perd, tout change.In nature nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes.” Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (French nobleman, chemist, biologist) Those of us who have studied chemistry are no doubt familiar with the name Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, also known as the ‘Father of Modern Chemistry’; however, many don’t realize the significant role played by his wife, research partner, and chief collaborator,…

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There’s no need for fiction in medicine, for the facts will always beat anything you fancy.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle[1] (physician, creator of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes) Born May 22, 1859, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Scottish writer behind Sherlock Holmes, was also a doctor who received his medical degree from the University of Edinburgh, which was renowned as one of the premier medical institutions in Europe and, indeed, the world. Students of creative writing are told repeatedly to “write…

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“In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to whom the idea first occurs.”Sir Francis Darwin (botanist, son of Charles Darwin) In a February 1, 2018 article in The New England Journal of Medicine, Arthur W. Boylston, M.D.[1], debunks the myth of the milkmaids and their impact on the development of the smallpox vaccine—the world’s first vaccine. For more than two centuries, folklore told Edward Jenner was inspired to create the vaccine which eventually eradicated…

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