The scariest drink in history has made a big hole in the millionaire's head.

on the morning of March 31, 1932, Eben Byers (Eben M. Byers) died painfully in a New York hospital.

he was killed by radium. This dangerous substance is deposited in his body, and his bones, internal organs, and even breathing are radioactive. All the bones in Byers' body were necrotizing and disintegrating. He had already lost most of his jaw and even made a big hole in his skull. The scene was so tragic that witnesses could not bear to describe it.

Byers is a rich man in the steel business and an excellent amateur golfer. Regardless of financial resources or physical fitness, it is hard to imagine that such a celebrity would die so miserably at the age of 51.

and the culprit behind this is the most dangerous "energy drink" in history-radium (Radithor).

the author draws

"magic" potions

ingest radiation like a drink, which is hard for people to imagine these days-after all, we already know how dangerous they are at school. However, in the United States in the 1920-1930s, there was an absurd trend of using the radioactive element radium to "strengthen the body". Radium water is the most representative product in this trend.

Radium was born in 1925 and was produced by the Bailey Radium Laboratory, a company founded by William Bailey (William J. A. Bailey). Although it may seem high-tech, the process of producing radium water is very simple: the Bailey radium laboratory just buys radium salts from another laboratory nearby and dissolves them in distilled water. After such a simple process, the value of these solutions has risen by nearly 500%, turning them into magical "patented drugs".

an empty radium water bottle once contained a solution containing small amounts of radium-226and radium-228. National Museum of Nuclear Science & amp; History/Wikipedia

strictly speaking, radium was not a medicine at that time, radium was regarded as a "natural element" rather than a pharmaceutical ingredient, and it was not regulated by the FDA, so it might be more accurate to say that it was a "health drink". it is precisely because of regulatory omissions that these radioactive solutions are put on the market without careful evaluation and can be purchased without a prescription.

Radium water is packaged by Bailey into an omnipotent health drink. The advertising brochure claims that the alpha particles produced by radium decay can "replenish energy" for the human body and reinvigorate the endocrine system, so radium can treat more than 150 diseases, including high blood pressure, anemia, and epilepsy. Although there was no scientific basis for this claim, the radium water business quickly boomed-probably because Bailey offered generous kickbacks to doctors who recommended radium water. Between 1925 and 1930, more than 400000 bottles of radium water were sold around the world.

at the same time, various "radium health products" emerge one after another. The picture shows a jar of radium bath salt. Orau.org

Byers met radium water in 1927-the year he accidentally broke his arm and was plagued by chronic pain. On the advice of Dr. Charles Clinton Moyar (Charles Clinton Moyar), Byers began to try radium water.

radium seems to have a magical effect on Byers-at least, he thinks so. Byers felt that he had regained his youthful vitality and has since become a loyal fan of radium water. In the following two years, he persisted in drinking radium water every day, drinking a total of 1000-1500 bottles. He not only drank it himself, but also gave radium water to his friends in boxes, and even fed some to his racehorse.

Byers in the 1920s | Wikipedia

the illusion was disillusioned

however, the beautiful illusion quickly disappeared. In early 1930, Byers began to feel something wrong: he lost weight and had headaches and toothaches. At first, the private doctor thought he had sinusitis, but then Byers' teeth began to fall out one by one-not the result of sinusitis.

while looking at Byers'X-rays, radiologist Joseph Steiner (Joseph Steiner) noticed the problem: there was a lesion in his jaw, and the characteristics were very similar to the previously discovered cases of radium poisoning. Given this, the root of the problem should lie in the radium water that Byers drank.

"radium girl" is another famous case of radium poisoning in the same period. These female workers ingested radium while painting their watches with luminous paint, resulting in jaw necrosis. Wikipedia

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at the same time, government agencies also began to notice the danger of radium water. On February 4, 1930, FDA issued a warning against these radioactive agents, and the Federal Trade Commission (Federal Trade Commission) filed a lawsuit against Bailey's radium water company, accusing them of "falsely promoting the efficacy and safety of the product."

Byers stopped ingesting radium water, but it was too late: the deposited radium still wreaked havoc in his body. In September 1931, the FTC expected Byers to testify at the hearing, but he was too ill to go out. An agent who went to Byers' home to investigate the situation witnessed what happened to him at that time: he had experienced after two jaw excisions, he was completely disfigured, conscious but could hardly speak; his head was covered in bandages and there was even a hole in his skull because of bone necrosis. In addition to osteonecrosis, Byers developed organ failure, bone marrow disease, and brain abscess, and he died on March 31, 1932.

after death, Byers' remains still show dangerous radioactivity and need to be buried in a lead-lined coffin. posterity analysis shows that by the time of Byers' death, the accumulated radiation dose in his bones had exceeded 350 sieverts (Sv). What is the concept of this number? The average person receives about 2.4 millisieverts of background ionizing radiation each year, and Byers receives more than 140000 times as much radiation through radium water.

the medical examiner placed Byers' teeth on the photosensitive plate, and the rays from the teeth left these amazing photosensitive marks.

the end of the farce

as a socialite, Byers' tragic death quickly made headlines, which also marked the end of the trend of "radioactive health products."

at the end of 1932, the Federal Trade Commission officially closed the Bailey Radium Laboratory. Public health officials were busy removing radium-containing products from shelves, and worried people volunteered to hand over their stocks. Doctors have reported more cases of similar poisoning, and there are growing calls for legislation to strictly control radium.

however, Bailey, the culprit behind radium water, was not much affected. Throughout the incident, he insisted that Byers' strange illness had nothing to do with his product: "I drank more radium than anyone else, but I never had any discomfort." Because the law is not perfect, Bailey was not sued for Byers' death.

the radioactivity of radium is very dangerous, but there are not too many deaths caused by related products, so there are no immediate vigilance-the reasons behind this include price and product fraud. Bailey's radium water is so expensive that it is difficult for ordinary people to afford it, so it is difficult to ingest it in large quantities. While many other "panacea" sold under the banner of radium are counterfeit products, FDA tests show that most of these products do not contain radium.

at that time, products that did not contain radium were often exposed to the heat of radium, such as this "radium butter" | orau.org

when the radium water scandal was widely noticed, Bailey secretly escaped from the public eye. He finally died of bladder cancer in 1949 at the age of 64-if he drank as much radium as he claimed, it would have been miraculous longevity.

tests conducted in 1968 showed that Bailey's bones were also highly radioactive-just like the millionaire he killed.

I finally wrote radium. I first learned about it in Juvenile Science Illustrated when I was in primary school. It can be regarded as the shadow of my childhood.

in the course of looking up the data, I found a picture of Byers after having his jaw removed, but it was too uncomfortable, so no picture was added here.

in fact, until now, the so-called "panacea" with unproven effectiveness and safety will continue to appear, which not only defraud money but also endanger people's health at the same time. However, after the lessons of history, people's understanding of the laws of medicine has gradually deepened, and the supervision has become more stringent, and the situation is still much better than at that time.