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Incredible as it may sound, the consumption of radioactive products was considered completely common in the early 20th century, and harmful preparations were often used as medicine. The popular golfer and steel magnate Eben Byers has also been a victim of this ignorance, according to an article on the IFL Science outreach portal.
In 1896, a French physicist, Henri Becquerel, observed that radiation was a property of uranium. Later, three other elements, thorium, polonium, and radium, were found to be similar. Radioactivity as a concept was first used by Marie Curie. At this age, humanity was not yet aware of the harmful effects of radioactive radiation, so these dangerous substances began to be used in everyday products such as toothpastes and cigarettes to “improve quality.”
One of those products was also consumed by Eben Byers, a well-known American mogul and athlete. The man, popular with women, also won the 1906 American Amateur Golf Championship. Byers’s promising career was shattered by an accident in 1927; When he fell from a train, his arm was seriously injured, seriously impairing not only his athletic performance but also his sex life.
For the man’s pain, the doctor prescribed a medicine called Radithor. The drug was invented by one William JA Bailey and presumably paid professionals to recommend his product to patients.
Radithor was actually radio diluted in water.
At first, the drug seemed to be consumed, Byers’s pains were gone, so the man gave his deadly cocktail to his business partners, girlfriends, and even racehorses. During the man’s short life, he consumed 1,400 vials of Radithor.
During this period, the harmful effects of radioactive materials were not yet known. Additionally, manufacturers have been penalized for putting less radiant material in their products than promised. Over time, it turned out that what they were doing was putting consumers to a slow death.
Horror Effects
Radithor slowly but surely destroyed Byers’s organization; he lost weight dramatically, he had constant headaches, his teeth began to fall out, then his bones were already on the brink of disintegration. By 1931, it became clear that radioactive substances were not good for you, so authorities asked Byers to testify about it. However, the man was already in such bad condition at the time that he could not attend the hearing, only through his lawyer was he able to report his experience in a statement issued.
Towards the end of his life, Byers lost almost all of his teeth, as well as his entire upper jaw, and had to remove much of his lower jaw. His bones disintegrated and holes formed in his skull.
A few weeks before his death, he learned that he was in the final stages, he could no longer be helped. He was 51 when he died. His body was buried in a lead coffin.
The Byers case highlighted the dangers of products containing radioactive materials and soon all of those preparations disappeared from the shelves of stores and pharmacies.
The irony of fate is that Radithor’s inventor also died of cancer in 1949.
Its remains were still hot from radiation 20 years later.
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