The box

Chet Raymo makes a great point in his piece, "A Measure of Restraint," about the wickedness in seemingly innocent beauty. Raymo had multiple stories of the countless mishaps with things that started out as "beautiful, (and) refulgent" and ended in death. One of those stories was about Marie and Pierre Curies. They found the element radium; this beautiful glowing object had made the Curies famous. But with this wonderful gift, came a deadly curse. Radium is extremely radioactive and fatal when around it excessively, yet Marie Curie kept it with her constantly. She brought it to her death when she died of radiation-induced leukemia. This is almost like Pandora box, the mythological story about Pandora who was given a box that contained all the evils in the world. She did not know what was in the box, but was told not to open it. Her innocent curiosity caused her to open it, letting out all the horrors and evils into the world. He curiosity was much like Marie Curie's initial motives. Radium was a beautiful new element that had made her famous, but Curie's love for her new element had awful consequences. Today the phrase "to open Pandora's box" means to perform an action that may seem small or innocent, but that turns out to have severely detrimental and far-reaching consequences. After Curie's discovery, there were thousands of uses that were proposed. Many of the application, such as lip stick, ended with many individuals affected by "anemia and lesions... (with) a number of them (that) died." Her innocent discovery ended in her own death.