Marie Curie installed 20 mobile radiological vehicles in the first year of World War I.
These vehicles carried X-ray equipment, generators, and other supplies to field hospitals near the front. Curie understood that battlefield surgeons needed to locate bullets, shrapnel, and bone fractures quickly, often before deciding whether an operation or amputation was necessary.
The units were popularly called petites Curies, or “Little Curies.” Curie learned more about radiology, anatomy, and automobile mechanics so she could help adapt vehicles for mobile medical work. She also worked with military doctors and trained personnel to operate the equipment safely and effectively.
The figure 20 refers specifically to mobile radiological vehicles. Curie’s wartime program also installed another 200 radiological units in field hospitals during that first year, which is why the two numbers are sometimes mixed up. The vehicles made it possible to bring diagnostic imaging closer to wounded soldiers instead of transporting every patient to a fixed hospital.