18                                 Edith H. Quimby

approve of and encourage group activities of women. She enjoyed
visiting a radium factory and various hospital laboratories and
radium clinics, but she feels keenly that although radium was dis¬
covered and first purified in France, both scientific and medical
research have lagged there. She is most grateful for the gift that
will now permit her laboratory to assume its rightful place in this
field. (I remember her visit to the Radium Laboratory of the old
Memorial Hospital, where I was at the time a very junior research
assistant. Out laboratory was by no means bright and shining, and
we considered it not too well equipped. And she was too tired to
spend much time, or see much of our work. But it all looked good
to her.)

Characteristically, her own explanation of the American enthu¬
siasm over radium and for its discoverer is that it was a response
to the scientific idealism which animated herself and her husband;
it did not occur to her that it was also a tribute to Marie Curie as a
personality in her own right: "The American nation is generous
and always ready to appreciate an action inspired by considera¬
tions of general interest. If the discovery of radium has so much
sympathy in America, it is not only because of its scientific value
and of the importance of medical utilization;—it is also because the
discovery has been given to humanity without reservation, or
material benefit to the discoverers. My husband and I have con¬
sidered our work from the standpoint of pure science. The publi¬
cation of all details of our work has created very favorable
conditions for the development of the Science of Radioactivity
and for the establishment of the industry of radium. Our American
friends wanted to honor this spirit animating the French science".

For the next few months there are few letters. She was ap¬
parently exhausted from the trip and had to recuperate. By winter
she was back in her laboratory with Irene acting as her assistant.
Eve was turning definitely toward a musical career.

There was money left in the Marie Curie Radium Fund after
the purchase of the radium. She would have liked to have the