Having been diagnosed with hysteria in 1878, Blanche Wittman was committed to Salpetriere Hospital for sixteen years. Under the care of the famous M. Charcot she was regularly displayed before a public audience in a cataleptic state. Over time the nature of her participation in these demonstrations changed, as did her relationship with M. Charcot, until eventually she graduated from patient to assistant. On leaving the hospital she was hired by Marie Curie to work in her Paris laboratory, where, on 17 February 1898, after successful experiments conducted with the mineral pitchblende, radium was discovered. So enchanted was Marie by its soft blue glow that she took to keeping a glass vial of radium salts at her beside. For Blanche, the effects were more brutal; exposure to radiation necessitated the amputation of all her limbs, save one. Marie did not escape tragedy altogether; her husband 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 cost her a second Nobel Prize.
Using Blanche's notebooks - "The Book of Questions" - Enquist deftly weaves fact and fiction to render the extraordinary relationship of two extraordinary women at the dawn of a century of tremendous change. Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein and Emmeline Pankhurst are among the many that add to the authenticity of this powerful tale of scientific discovery, death, art and love.
- ISBN10 1843432331
- ISBN13 9781843432333
- Publish Date 5 October 2006
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 15 October 2012
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Harvill Secker
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English