Radium (Ra) Marie Curie and her husband Pierre isolated Radium during their early years of research. Ever since she discovered it Marie devoted her life to Radium and it's continued study. She did every thing in her power to get a radioactivity laboratory started in Warsaw. She was especially interested in the remedial use of Radium. During WW1 Marie helped equip ambulances with x-ray machines and drove them to the front lines herself. She also held seminars to teach doctors and nurses how to use the new equipment. Historically Radium was used in self-luminous paint on clocks and watches. In the early 1900's these clocks and watches were hand painted and the workers who painted them were exposed to a lot of radium which caused many health problems. After a major watch company was sued for not properly protecting their employees from the radium laws were passed that made it a little safer to work with the radium paint. However it was still a health risk so eventually radium stopped being used in the paint used on clocks.                                                                                                                                                                           Photo credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium#Historical                                            Photo credit:https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/themes/physics/curie/                               A drawing of Marie and Pierre Curie experimenting with Radium                 Marie Curie driving an ambulance during WW1