Honored by Scientists Here

Nikola Tesla, one of the world's greatest inventors, and Dr. James Ewing, director of Memorial Hospital, one of the world's leading authorities on cancer, paid tribute here yesterday to Mme. Curie's genius.

Mr. Tesla commented as follows:
"Mme. Sklodowska Curie will be accorded by posterity a distinguished position among the great women of history, owing to the unique character and quality of her work. She leaves among her contemporaries an impression akin to that of a rare, ethereal phenomenon. By sheer force of mind she managed to sustain her frail body through years of concentrated and subtle effort. Her researches in isolating radium and polonium are almost unmatched for exquisite skill, patience and scientific insight. In common with other investigators she attributed the energy manifestation of radioactive bodies to internal processes. It will eventually be recognized, as I have maintained from the beginning, that they are but secondary effects of an all-penetrating radiation. But this will not detract from the greatness of her achievement."

Dr. Ewing said:
"The discovery of radium by Mme. Curie and her husband was one of the outstanding events in the modern epoch of cancer control. While radium is not a panacea for all forms of cancer, the medical profession has found it to be an agent of vast importance in the treatment of this group of diseases. For the first time in the history of medicine there has been available an agent, acting by invisible forces, at a distance, which destroys cancer tissue, painlessly and with little injurious effect on normal tissues. By this means thousands of cases of cancer have been cured in all parts of the civilized world, many of them beyond the reach of any other method. While Mme. Curie was a physicist, she fully realized the extreme importance of her discovery as a curative agent. She visited cancer hospitals in Europe and America. She was immensely pleased by the gift of two grams of radium from American women admirers, and she took a just pride in the fact that her discovery had made her a benefactor of humanity."