The Story of Blanche and Marie Paperback - 2007

Vintage Publishing, 2007. Paperback. Good. Having Been Diagnosed With Hysteria In 1878, Blanche Wittman Was Committed To Salpêtrière Hospital For Sixteen Years. Under The Care Of The Famous M. Charcot She Was Regularly Displayed Before A Public Audience In A Catalepti c State. Over Time The Nature Of Her Participation In These Demonstrations Changed, As Did Her Relationship With M. Charcot, Until Eventually She Grad uated From Patient To Assistant. On Leaving The Hospital She Was Hired By M arie Curie To Work In Her Paris Laboratory, Where, On 17 February 1898, Aft er Successful Experiments Conducted With The Mineral Pitchblende, Radium Wa s Discovered. So Enchanted Was Marie By Its Soft Blue Glow That She Took To Keeping A Glass Vial Of Radium Salts At Her Bedside. For Blanche, The Effe cts Were More Brutal; Exposure To Radiation Necessitated The Amputation Of All Her Limbs, Save One. Marie Did Not Escape Tragedy Altogether; Her Husba nd And Collaborator Pierre Was Weakened By Illness And Subsequently Killed Having Wandered In Front Of An Oncoming Horse And Cart. Following Pierre S Death Marie Embarked On An Ill-Fated Love Affair Which, In 1911, Almost Cos t Her A Second Nobel Prize.Using Blanche S Notebooks - 'The Book Of Questio ns' - Enquist Deftly Weaves Fact And Fiction To Render The Extraordinary Re lationship Of Two Extraordinary Women At The Dawn Of A Century Of Tremendou s Change. Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein And Emmeline Pankhurst Are Among T he Many That Add To The Authenticity Of This Powerful Tale Of Scientific Di scovery, Death, Art And Love.