with the world of science came from her encouraging father. While still a youth, she became involved in a revolutionary student organization and decided to leave her native Poland for vibrant Paris, France.
Although it took successive proposals, in 1895 Marie finally accepted the scientist Pierre Curie’s hand in marriage. The two rejected the traditional religious ceremony, however, as Pierre was agnostic and Marie, despite a catholic upbringing, was anticlerical at the time of their wedding. The couple settled in Paris, had two daughters and Marie, despite her dedication to research, showed herself to be a concerned and zealous mother.
Only nine years after completing her studies at the Sorbonne, Curie won her first Nobel Prize, which she shared with her husband and Henri Becquerel, for the couple’s research into Becquerel’s discovery of the phenomenon of spontaneous radioactivity. The Curies’ research was arduously performed with primitive equipment as they had very little financial or logistical support available to them at the time.
In 1906 the couple’s happiness unfortunately ended with the accidental death of Pierre. After this, Marie accepted an invitation to lecture at the Sorbonne, taking over from her husband and becoming the first woman to lecture at the prestigious institution. The 1911 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to Marie Curie in her own right, for her discovery of radium and polonium. Although in 1903, due to illness, neither Curie could travel to Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics, on the occasion of her second award, Marie, accompanied by her daughter Irène and her sister, was proudly present at the ceremony.
After receiving the second Nobel Prize, Marie Curie focused her attentions on the medical uses of radium to treat cancer. In this task she was aided by her daughter Irène and son-in-law Frédéric Joliot both of whom would be laureates in 1935 for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Marie Currie died in France, from cancer caused by prolonged exposure to radiation, a risk she understood during the research to perfect its beneficial use.
Allvar Gullstrand (1862–1930)
1911 Physiology or Medicine
For his work on the dioptrics of the eye.
Allvar Gullstrand, eldest son of Dr. Pehr and Sofia Gullstrand, was born in Landskrona, Sweden. He began his studies at an early age, first in his hometown and later in Jönköping, a city on the southern tip of Lake Vättern, about 100 miles (150 km) east of Gothenburg.
In 1880 he enrolled in the prestigious Uppsala University, founded in 1477 and the oldest in the country. Gullstrand remained at this institution until 1885, when he decided to spend a year in Vienna, which at the time was the capital of powerful Austria-Hungary. From here he went on to Stockholm, where he resumed his studies. In 1888 he graduated with his degree in medicine, presented his doctoral thesis in 1890 and in 1891 was appointed a lecturer in ophthalmology. Three years later, after working briefly with the Swedish health ministry, he had the honor of being the first professor of ophthalmology at Uppsala University.
Gullstrand was married in 1885 to Signe Christina Breitholtz, and the couple had a daughter who died in infancy. Despite this personal loss, his professional career was very successful. On various occasions his work in the field of ophthalmology was distinguished with important prizes, including from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Medical Association and the Uppsala Faculty of Medicine.
Gullstrand’s service to the academic world, and his recognition for it, did not stop after he was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research into the dioptrics of the eye. He was a member of the Nobel Physics Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences from 1911 to 1929 and was its chairman from 1922 to 1929.
Throughout a life dedicated to understanding the structure and function of the cornea and research into astigmatism, Gullstrand made many significant contributions to the field. Among other achievements, he improved the corrective lenses used after cataract surgery, invented the slit lamp used to study the eye, to which he gave his name, and reformulated German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz’s theory to develop a mechanism that allowed the eye to focus both near and far within certain limits. When he died in Stockholm on the July 28, 1930, Gullstrand left an important legacy that revolutionized the practice of ophthalmology.
Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949)
1911 Literature
In appreciation of his many-sided literary activities, and especially of his dramatic works, which are distinguished by a wealth of imagination and by a poetic fancy, which reveals, sometimes in the guise of a fairy tale, a deep inspiration, while in a mysterious way they appeal to the readers’ own feelings and stimulate their imaginations.
Count Maurice Polidore Marie Bernhard Maeterlinck achieved worldwide recognition through his literary output. He was born in Ghent, Belgium, into a wealthy family. He attended the Jesuit College of Saint-Barbe and Ghent University, where he obtained a law degree in 1885. Maeterlinck’s early life suggested that he would follow a career in law, however, after a short period of time working as a lawyer at a small firm, Maeterlinck decided he was not suited to this profession.
Deciding to follow his love of literature, he moved to Paris. While there, he socialized with the literati, especially Villiers de L’Isle Adam, who ended up having a great influence on him. These experiences were so enriching that Maeterlinck decided to move permanently to Paris in 1896. Some time later, however, perhaps in search of peace and quiet, he moved to Saint-Wandrille and restored an old abbey for his retreat.
Maeterlinck’s debut as a well-known writer in the French language had occurred some years earlier, in 1889, with the publication of a collection of poems entitled Serres chaudes (Hothouses). That same year Octave Mirbeau, at the time the literary critic for Le Figaro newspaper, greatly praised Maeterlinck’s first work for the theater, La Princesse Maleine, which made him an overnight success.
In the following years he continued to produce books full of mystery and adventure. The romantic drama Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), which was adapted to the stage, is considered a masterpiece of symbolist drama. La Vie des abeilles (The Life of the Bee), published in 1900, is one of his most meditative works and shows his more transcendent side. L’Intruse (The Intruder, 1890), Alladine et Palomides (1894), Aglavaine et Sélysette (1896), and the pieces Joyzelle (1903) and L’Oiseau bleu (1909) — one of his most popular creations — also confirm the richness of his imagination and his poetic realm. These characteristics were the basis for his being awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Maeterlinck was also awarded the Triennial Prize for Dramatic Literature in 1903, although he refused it, was made Grand Officer of the Order of Léopold in 1920, given the title of the Count of Belgium in 1932 and, in Portugal, the distinction of the Ordem de Santiago da Espada in 1939.
Maeterlinck married Renée Dahon in 1911, with whom he spent the rest of his days until his death in Nice, France.
Elihu Root (1845–1937)
1912
