Alaina Urquhart

Yet at the same time that these young women were inhaling and consuming small amounts of radium, Marie Curie and her husband were beginning to understand the destructive power of the element that they discovered.

Oh, man.

And it was true that radium had the ability, which is, I mean, incredible.

It has the ability to destroy tumors and other cancerous growths.

That's where we get radiation.

Like, that's...

Of course, we look at it today and we say like, where would we be?

Right.

You know, but the more they worked with it, the more they began to recognize that its power to do that was indiscriminate.

It was just as likely to destroy healthy cells as it was to destroy unhealthy.

So it's like, this is for you.

That's not what we're looking for.

We just need to harness it the correct way and we have not.

And it's like, now the whole world is just like eating this shit up.

So it wasn't just the Curies who knew it either.

The founder of U.S.

radium, Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sashaki, had also become very, very familiar with the destructive power of radium.

How familiar?

Yeah.

According to author Kate Moore, who we will cite the sources in the notes, of course, early in the company's history, radium had actually gotten into Von Shishaki's left index finger.