Woman in Science Part 19

Compare their work with that which was accomplished by their ill.u.s.trious predecessors, Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, and his wife, a century earlier. The latter, by their discovery of and experiments with oxygen, were able to explain the until then mysterious phenomena of combustion and respiration and to coordinate numberless facts which had before stood isolated and enigmatic. But the reverse was the case in the discovery of that extraordinary and uncanny element, radium. It completely subverted many long-established theories and necessitated an entirely new view of the nature of energy and of the const.i.tution of matter. A substance that seemed capable of emitting light and heat indefinitely, with little or no appreciable change or transformation, appeared to sap the very foundations of the fundamental principle of the conservation of energy.

Subsequent investigations seemed only to render "confusion worse confounded." They appeared to justify the dreams of the alchemists of old, not only regarding the trans.m.u.tation of metals but also respecting the elixir of life. For was not this apparently absurd idea vindicated by the observed curative properties--bordering almost on the miraculous--this marvelous element was reputed to possess! Its virtues, it was averred, transcended the fabled properties of the famous red tincture and the philosopher's stone combined, and many were prepared to find in it a panacea for the most distressing of human ailments, from lupus and rodent ulcer to cancer and other frightful forms of morbid degeneration.[161]

And the end is not yet. Continued investigations, made in all parts of the world since the discovery of radium by the Curies, have but emphasized its mysterious properties, and compelled a revision of many of our most cherished theories in chemistry, physics and astronomy. No one single discovery, not even Pasteur's far-reaching discovery of microbic life, it may safely be a.s.serted, has ever been more subversive of long-accepted views in certain domains of science, or given rise to more perplexing problems regarding matters which were previously thought to be thoroughly understood.

Never in the entire history of science have the results of a woman's scientific researches been so stupendous or so revolutionary. And never has any one achievement in science reflected more glory on womankind than that which is so largely due to the genius and the perseverance of Mme. Curie.

After their startling discovery, honors and tributes to their genius came in rapid succession to the gifted couple. On the recommendation of the venerable British savant, Lord Kelvin, they were awarded the Davy gold medal by the Royal Society. Shortly after this they shared with M.

H. Becquerel in the n.o.bel prize for physics bestowed on them by Sweden.

Then came laggard France with its decoration of the Legion of Honor. But it was offered only to the man. There was nothing for the woman. Pierre Curie showed his spirit and chivalry by declining to accept the proffered honor unless his wife could share it with him. His answer was simple, but its meaning could not be mistaken. "This decoration," he said, "has no bearing on my work."[162]

Shortly after her husband's death Mme. Curie was appointed as his successor as special lecturer in the Sorbonne. This was the first time that this conservative old university ever invited a woman to a full professorship. But she soon showed that she was thoroughly competent to fill the position with honor and eclat. She has the elite of society and the world's most noted men of science among her auditors. The crowned heads of the Old World eagerly seek an opportunity to witness her experiments and hear her discourse on what is by all odds the most marvelous element in nature.

Mme. Curie has not allowed her lectures in the Sorbonne to interfere with the continuation of the researches which have won for her such world-wide renown. Since the sudden taking off of her husband by a pa.s.sing truck on a Paris bridge, she has succeeded in isolating both radium and polonium--only the chlorides and bromides of these elements were previously known--besides doing other work scarcely less remarkable. And besides all this, she has also found time to write a connected account of her investigations under the t.i.tle of _Traite de Radio-Activite_--a work that reflects as much honor on her s.e.x as did _Le Inst.i.tuzioni a.n.a.litiche_ of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, which won for her, through that celebrated patron of learning, Benedict XIV, the chair of higher mathematics in the University of Bologna.

The list of learned societies to which Mme. Curie belongs is an extended one. To mention only a few, she is an honorary or foreign member of the London Chemical Society, the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain, the Royal Swedish Academy, the American Chemical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St.

Petersburg. From the universities of Geneva and Edinburgh she has received the honorary degree of doctor.

In 1898 she received the Gegner prize from the French Academy of Sciences for her elaborate researches on the magnetic properties of iron and steel, as also for her investigations relating to radio-activity.

The same prize was again awarded to her in 1900, and still again in 1903. With her husband she received in 1901 the La Caze prize of ten thousand francs; and in 1903 she received a part of the Osiris prize of sixty thousand francs. Since her husband's death in 1906 Mme. Curie has been awarded the coveted n.o.bel prize in chemistry, which was placed in her hand by the King of Sweden on December 11, 1911--a prize which increased the exchequer of the fair recipient by nearly two hundred thousand francs. Having before been the beneficiary of the n.o.bel prize for physics, in conjunction with her husband and M. H. Becquerel, Mme.

Curie is thus the first person to be twice singled out for the world 's highest financial recognition of scientific research.

It would take too long to enumerate all the medals and prizes and honors which have come to this remarkable woman from foreign countries. But she has doubtless been the recipient of more trophies of undying fame during the last decade and a half than any other one person during the same brief period of intellectual activity. And all these tokens of recognition of genius were showered upon her not because she was a woman, but in spite of this fact. Had she been a man, she would have been honored with the other distinctions which tradition and prejudice still persist in denying to one of the proscribed s.e.x, no matter how great her merit or how signal her achievements.

At a recent scientific congress, held in Brussels, it was decided to prepare a standard of measurement of radium emanations. It was the unanimous opinion of the congress that Mme. Curie was better equipped than any other person for establishing such a standard; and she was accordingly requested to undertake the delicate and difficult task--a commission which she executed to the satisfaction of all concerned.

This unit of measurement, it is gratifying to learn, will be known as the curie--a word which will enter the same category as the volt, the ohm, the ampere, the farad, and a few others which will perpetuate the names of the world's greatest geniuses in the domain of experimental science.

When, not long since, there was a vacancy among the immortals of the French Academy, there was a generally expressed desire that it should be filled by one who was universally recognized as among the foremost of living scientists. The name of Mme. Curie trembled on every lip; and the hope was entertained that the Academy would honor itself by admitting the world-famed savante among its members. Considering her achievements, she had no compet.i.tor, and was, in the estimation of all outside of the Academy, the one person in France who was most deserving of the coveted honor.

But no. She was a woman; and for that reason alone she was excluded from an inst.i.tution the sole object of whose establishment was the reward of merit and the advancement of learning. The age-old prejudice against women who devote themselves to the study of science, or who contribute to the progress of knowledge, was still as dominant as it was in the days of Maria Gaetana Agnesi, a century and a half before. Mme. Curie, like her famous sister in Italy, might win the plaudits of the world for her achievements; but she could have no recognition from the one inst.i.tution, above all others, that was specially founded to foster the development of science and literature, and to crown the efforts of those who had proven themselves worthy of the Academy's highest honor. The att.i.tude of the French inst.i.tution toward Mme. Curie was exactly like that of the Royal Society of Great Britain when Mrs. Ayrton's name was up for membership. The answer to both applicants was in effect, if not in words, "No woman need apply."

When one reads of the sad experiences of Mme. Curie and Mrs. Ayrton with the learned societies of Paris and London, one instinctively asks, "When will the day come when women, in every part of the civilized world, shall enjoy all the rights and privileges in every field of intellectual effort which have so long been theirs in the favored land of Dante and Beatrice--the motherland of learned societies and universities?" For not until the advent of the day when such exclusive organizations as the Royal Society and the French Academy of Sciences, such ultra-conservative universities as Oxford and Cambridge shall admit women on the same footing as men, will these inst.i.tutions be more than half serving the best interests of humanity.[163]

Women, it is true, are now eligible to many literary and scientific a.s.sociations from which they were formerly debarred, and are, in most countries, admitted to colleges and universities whose portals were closed to them until only a few years ago; but until they shall be welcomed to all universities and all societies whose objects are the advancement of knowledge, until they shall partic.i.p.ate in the advantages and prestige accruing from connection with these organizations, they will have reason to feel that they are not yet in the full possession of the intellectual advantages for which they have so long yearned--that they have been but partially liberated from that educational disqualification in which they have been held during so many long centuries of deferred hopes and fruitless struggles.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] _Lavoisier 1743-1794, d'apres sa Correspondence, Ses Ma.n.u.scrits, Ses Papiers de Famille et d'Autres Doc.u.ments Inedits_, p. 42 et seq., par E. Grimaux, Paris, 1896.

[159] _The Life of Ellen H. Richards_, p. 273 et seq., by Caroline L.

Hunt, Boston, 1912.

[160] Mme. Curie, in an article which she wrote shortly after her discovery of radium, shows that she possesses a genius for inductive science of the highest type. "It was at the close of the year 1897," she writes, "that I began to study the compounds of uranium, the properties of which had greatly attracted my interest. Here was a substance emitting spontaneously and continually radiations similar to Rontgen rays, whereas ordinarily, Rontgen rays can be produced only in a vacuum tube with the expenditure of electrical energy. By what process can uranium furnish the same rays without expenditure of energy and without undergoing apparent modification? Is uranium the only body whose compounds emit similar rays? Such were the questions I asked myself; and it was while seeking to answer them that I entered into the researches which have led to the discovery of radium." _Radium and Radio-Activity in The Century Magazine_, for January, 1904.

[161] _Notice sur Pierre Curie_, p. 20 et seq., by M. D. Gernez, Paris, 1907, and _Le Radium, Son Origine et ses Transformations_, by M. L.

Houllerigue, in _La Revue de Paris_, May 1, 1911.

[162] The day following Pierre Curie's refusal of the decoration offered by the Government, the elder of his two daughters, little Irene, climbed upon her father's knee and put a red geranium in the lapel of his coat.

"Now, papa," she gravely remarked, "you are decorated with the Legion of Honor." "In this case," the fond father replied, "I make no objection."

[163] A few days before Mme. Curie's name was to come before the Academy of Sciences as a candidate for membership, the French Inst.i.tute in its quarterly plenary meeting of the five academies, of which the Inst.i.tute is composed, decided by a vote of ninety to fifty-two against the eligibility of women to membership, and put itself on record in favor of the "immutable tradition against the election of women, which it seemed eminently wise to respect."

Commenting on this decision of The Immortals, a writer in the well-known English magazine, _Nature_, under date of January 12, 1911, penned the following pertinent paragraph:

"It remains to be seen what the Academy of Sciences will do in the face of such an expression of opinion. Mme. Curie is deservedly popular in French scientific circles. It is everywhere recognized that her work is of transcendent merit, and that it has contributed enormously to the prestige of France as a home of experimental inquiry. Indeed, it is not too much to say that the discovery and isolation of the radio-active elements are among the most striking and fruitful results of a field of investigation preeminently French. If any prophet is to have honour in his own country--even if the country be only the land of his adoption--surely, that honour ought to belong to Mme. Curie. At this moment, Mme. Curie is without doubt, in the eyes of the world, the dominant figure in French chemistry. There is no question that any man who had contributed to the sum of human knowledge what she has made known, would years ago have gained that recognition at the hands of his colleagues, which Mme. Curie's friends are now desirous of securing for her. It is incomprehensible, therefore, on any ethical principles of right and justice that, because she happens to be a woman, she should be denied the laurels which her preeminent scientific achievement has earned for her."

Compare this frank and honest statement with that of a contributor, about the same date, to _La Revue du Monde_, of Paris. Guided by his myopic vision and diseased imagination, this writer discerns in the admittance of women into the grand old inst.i.tution of Richelieu and Napoleon the imminent triumph of what Prudhon called p.o.r.nocracy and the eventual opening of the portals of the Palais Mazarin to representatives of the type of Lais and Phryne, on the h.e.l.lenic pretext that "Beauty is the supreme merit."

It is gratifying, however, to the friends of woman's cause to learn that Mme. Curie's candidacy was defeated by only two votes. Her compet.i.tor, M. Branly, received thirty votes against the Polish woman's twenty-eight. She thus fared far better than did Mme. Pauline Savari, who aspired to the fauteuil made vacant by the death of Renan, regarding whose candidature the Academy curtly declared, "Considering that its traditions do not permit it to examine this question, the Academy pa.s.ses to the order of the day." Thus, it will be seen that, in spite of the long-continued opposition to women members, the French Academy is more than likely to offer its next vacant chair to the pride and glory of Poland,--the immortal discoverer of radium and polonium.

CHAPTER VII

WOMEN IN THE NATURAL SCIENCES

It is reasonable to suppose that women, who are such lovers of nature, have always had a greater or less interest in the natural sciences, especially in botany and zoology; but the fact remains that the first one of their s.e.x to write at any length on the various kingdoms of nature was that extraordinary nun of the Middle Ages, St. Hildegard, the learned abbess of the Benedictine convent of St. Rupert, at Bingen on the Rhine. Of an exceptionally versatile and inquiring mind, her range of study and acquirement was truly encyclopaedic. In this respect she was the worthy forerunner of Albert the Great, the famous _Doctor Universalis_ of Scholasticism.

Although St. Hildegard has much to say about nature in several of her works, the one of chiefest interest to us as an exposition of the natural history of her time is her treatise ent.i.tled _Liber Subtilitatum Diversarum Naturarum Creaturarum_. It is usually known by its more abbreviated name, _Physica_, and, considering the circ.u.mstances under which it was written, is, in many ways, a most remarkable production. It consists of nine books treating of minerals, plants, fishes, birds, insects and quadrupeds. The book on plants is composed of no fewer than two hundred and thirty chapters, while that on birds contains seventy-two chapters.

In reading Hildegard's descriptions of animated nature we are often reminded of Pliny's great work on natural history; but, so far as known, there is no positive evidence that the learned religieuse had any acquaintance whatever with the writings of the old Roman naturalist. Had she had, the general tenor of her work would have been quite different from what it actually is.

The mystery, then, is, what were the sources of _Physica_? Some have fancied that Hildegard in preparing this made use of the writings not only of Pliny and Virgil, but also of those of Macer, Constantinus Africa.n.u.s, Walafrid Strabo, Isodore of Seville, and other writers who were in great vogue during the Middle Ages. The general consensus of opinion, however, of those who have carefully studied this interesting problem is that the gentle nun was not acquainted with any of the authors named, except, possibly, Isodore of Seville, whose works were all held in high esteem, especially during the period of Hildegard's greatest literary activity.

Hildegard's _Physica_ has a special value for philologists, as well as for students of natural history, for it contains the German names of plants still used by the people of the Fatherland seven hundred years after they were penned by the painstaking abbess of St. Rupert's.[164]

Referring to the Saint's work ent.i.tled _De Natura Hominis, Elementorum, Diversarumque Creaturarum_--a treatise on the nature of man, the elements and divers created things--no less an authority than Dr.

Charles Daremberg declares that it will always hold an important place in the history of medical art and of inanimate and animate nature--_insignis semper locus debet.i.tur in artis medicae rerumque naturalium historia_.[165]

He even goes further and affirms that Hildegard was familiar with numerous facts of science regarding which other mediaeval writers were entirely ignorant. More than this. She was acquainted with many of nature's secrets which were unknown to men of science until recent times, and which, on being disclosed by modern researches, have been proclaimed to the world as new discoveries.[166]

One reason why St. Hildegard's writings on botany, zoology and mineralogy are not better known is that few students care to make the effort to master her voluminous works. They require long and a.s.siduous study and a knowledge of her peculiarities of style and expression which is acquired only after patient and persistent labor. But the labor is not in vain, as is evidenced by the numerous monographs which have appeared in recent years, especially in Germany, on the scientific works of this marvelous nun of the twelfth century. All things considered, the Abbess of Bingen may be said to hold the same position in the natural sciences of her time as was held in the physical and mathematical sciences seven hundred years earlier by the ill.u.s.trious Hypatia of Alexandria.

After the death of St. Hildegard, full six centuries elapsed before any one of her s.e.x again achieved distinction in the domain of natural science. And then, strange to relate, the first woman who won fame by her knowledge of science and by her contributions to it, did so in the field where a woman would, one would think, be least disposed to exercise her talent and least likely to find congenial work. It was in the then comparatively new science of human anatomy--a science which had been inaugurated in the famous medical schools of Salerno and which was subsequently so highly developed in the great University of Bologna.

The name of this remarkable woman was Anna Morandi Manzolini. She was born in 1716 in Bologna, where, after a brilliant career in her favorite branch of science, she died at the age of fifty-eight. She held the chair of anatomy in the University of Bologna for many years, and is noted for a number of important discoveries made as the result of her dissections of cadavers.

But she won a still greater t.i.tle to fame by the marvelous skill which she exhibited in making anatomical models out of indurated wax. They were so carefully fashioned that some of them could scarcely be distinguished from the parts of the body from which they were modeled.

As aids in the study of anatomy they were most highly valued and eagerly sought for on all sides. The collection which she made for her own use was, after her death, acquired by the Medical Inst.i.tute of Bologna and prized as one of its most precious possessions.

Three years after her demise, Luigi Galvani, professor of anatomy in the same university in which Anna had achieved such fame, made use of these wax models for a course of lectures on the organs and structure of the human body.

These famous models, first perfected by Anna Manzolini, were the archetypes of the exquisite wax models of Va.s.sourie as well as of the unrivaled _papier-mache_ creations of Dr. Auzoux and of all similar productions now so extensively used in our schools and colleges.

Even during the lifetime of the gifted modeler there were demands for specimens of her work from all parts of Italy. From many cities in Europe, even from London and St. Petersburg, she received the most flattering offers for her services. So eager was Milan to have her accept a position which had been offered her that the city authorities sent her a blank contract and begged her to name her own conditions. But she could never be induced to leave the home of her childhood and the city which had witnessed and applauded her triumphs of maturer years.