Bronisława Dłuska

Bronisława Dłuska (around 1900)

Bronisława Dłuska (born March 28, 1865 in Warsaw , Russian Empire ; † April 15, 1939 ibid, Poland , born Bronisława (Bronia) Skłodowska ) was a doctor who practiced in France , the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, and Poland. In 1932 she became the first director of the Radium Institute in Warsaw ( Instytut Radowy w Warszawie , today Centrum Onkologii - Instytut im. Marii Skłodowskiej ), which she had built up and was founded on the initiative of her younger sister, Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie .

Live and act

Bronisława (center) with her father and sisters Marie and Helena (right)

Bronisława Skłodowska was the third oldest of five children of the teacher couple Bronisława and Władysław Skłodowski. The parents came from the Szlachta , the lower Polish landed gentry, and thus belonged to the Polish intelligentsia . Her father had studied in Saint Petersburg and taught mathematics and physics in various state and private schools. Her mother had attended the only private girls 'school in Warsaw, the girls' boarding school on Freta Street . She then worked there as a teacher and later headmaster until she gave up her post after the birth of her youngest daughter Maria. In 1873 the father was dismissed from school as a Polish patriot, and the family was forced to open a boarding school for financial reasons. The mother, who had tuberculosis, died in May 1878, and Bronisława took care of her three siblings and the father. Her older sister Zofja died of typhus in 1876 .

In 1882 Bronisława finished school with a gold medal. In Poland women were not admitted to universities, so she took courses at the Flying University (Uniwersytet Latający) , which Jadwiga Szczawińska-Dawidowa had secretly founded , and where she later gave courses. In 1884 she went to Paris to study medicine at the Sorbonne . During this time she received financial support from her sister Maria.

In 1890 Skłodowska was able to complete her studies with a focus on gynecology and obstetrics. In 1894 she received her doctorate with a thesis on breastfeeding . She married the doctor and Polish exile Kazimierz Dłuski. The couple had a daughter, Helena (1892–1921), and a son, Jakub (1898–1903). They ran a salon for Poles in exile, immigrants and stateless people in rue d'Allemagne near the Gare du Nord . In 1891 her sister Maria came to Paris to study and lived with them for a year, with financial support from her sister Bronia in the following period.

Construction of the Dłuski sanatorium near Zakopane (1901)

In 1898 the family returned to Poland and opened a sanatorium for lung patients in Kościelisko near Zakopane . The place in the High Tatras was part of the Habsburg monarchy . Dłuski was still denied entry into the Russian part of Poland. After the First World War , Poland became a sovereign state again as an independent Second Polish Republic. Kazimierz Dłuski was a delegate of the Republic of Zakopane at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919 . The couple was then able to return to Warsaw and open a tuberculosis sanatorium in the suburb of Anin .

After the first Radium Institute opened in 1920 , Marie Curie worked on setting up a second institute in Warsaw. The foundation stone was laid in 1925. Bronisława Dłuska became the founding director, overseeing the construction and recruitment of staff, while Marie raised money in the United States and France. In 1930 Dłuski died. Bronisława Dłuska officially opened the Radium Institute on May 29, 1932 and remained director. She died on April 15, 1939 and was buried in the grave of the Skłodowski family in the Powązki cemetery with her parents, her sisters Zofia and Helena, and brother Józef.

Grave of the Skłodowski family in the Powązki cemetery in Warsaw; the inscription for Dłuska is on the front above the plaque for her mother

Honors

Bronisława Dłuska received the Cross of Merit of the Republic of Poland (Krzyż Zasługi) in 1930 , the Commander's Cross of the Order of Odrodzenia Polski in 1937 , and the Medal of Independence (Medal Niepodległości) .

Helena Dłuska

Her daughter Helena Dłuska (born April 13, 1892 in Paris, † October 16, 1921 in Chicago ) was a well-known Polish mountaineer who made some first ascents in the High Tatras. After an accident in October 1909, she had to limit herself to hiking in the mountains. In 1920 she emigrated to America, where she worked in the editorial office of Dziennik Ludowy . She died from gas poisoning ( suicide ).

literature

• Natacha Henry: Les sœurs savantes, Marie Curie et Bronia Dluska . Vuibert 2015.
• Natacha Henry: Marie et Bronia, le Pacte des Soeurs . Albin Michel Jeunesse 2017.
• Theodora Mead: Two Polish Sisters . In: American-Polish Chamber of Commerce and Industry . Vol.7, no 5, 1926.
• Jósef Zychoń: Éloge du Dr Bronisława Dłuska . 1939.
• Wojciech Stojanowski: Helenów in the perspective of years . 2014.

Web links

Commons : Bronisława Dłuska  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ According to information on the family grave
2. ^ Contributions à l'étude de l'allaitement maternel. Thèse pour le doctorat en médecine présentée et soutenue le mercredi 4 juillet 1894 . Paris.
3. ↑ Monika Nyczanka: Kiedy zmarła Helena Dłuska? In: Głos Seniora. 06/2013.
4. ↑ Zofia Radwańska-Paryska, Witold Henryk Paryski: Wielka encyklopedia Tatrzańska . Poronin 2004.