Madame Curie Chapter Summary & Analysis - Part 3: Chapter 21 Summary

Part 3: Chapter 21 Summary

At the beginning of August 1914, the Germans enter France. Marie's daughters are spending the summer in an apartment in Brittany, where Marie had intended to join them at the end of the university year; but with the outbreak of war, Marie's patriotism resurfaces. France is her adopted country, and she wants to serve it. She immediately recognizes a need for portable X-ray machines. Until now, only a few machines (called Roentgen machines after the man who discovered X rays in 1895) exist, and only in the better hospitals. Marie collects all available X-ray material from manufacturers and distributes it to the hospitals. Then, using funds from the Union of the Women of France, she outfits an automobile with an X-ray machine and a dynamo that uses the current from the car's battery to run the machine. This portable radiological station circulates from hospital to hospital, serving the wounded evacuated...
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