Into the Mud with the Wounded

In the autumn of 1914, as the Western Front devoured young men by the thousands, Marie Curie — already the only person to hold Nobel Prizes in two sciences — made a decision that no one required of her. She would bring X-ray technology to the wounded rather than wait for the wounded to reach hospitals.

She learned to drive. She studied anatomy. She persuaded the French government to let her outfit ordinary vehicles with X-ray equipment and portable generators. These mobile units, soon called "petites Curies," rolled along the front lines to field hospitals where shattered soldiers lay wondering whether the shrapnel in their bodies could even be found. Her daughter Irène, still a teenager, joined her at the front. Together they trained over 150 women as radiological operators. By war's end, more than a million soldiers had been examined by Curie's units.

She could have stayed in her Paris laboratory. No one would have faulted a twice-decorated scientist for remaining at her desk. Instead, she went where the broken were.

Jesus said, "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40). Curie's example presses a question into every believer's conscience: Are we waiting for the hurting to come to us, or are we willing to load up and go to them? True service does not wait for a convenient summons. It moves toward the need.