![]() The death of Eben Byers was the wake-up call the medical community needed to realize the hazardous nature of this so-called "miracle cure" and marked the beginning of the end for the radium water remedy phenomenon. Byers died of severe radium poisoning in 1931 and his corpse had to be interred in a lead coffin. He had accumulated such a vast amount of radium in his bones that most of his jaw had to be surgically removed, his brain was severely abscessed, and holes formed in his skull. It is interest- ing that at the autopsies on the cases of radium poisoning amongst luminous paint-workers, already referred to, the viscera, and in particular the bones, were strongly radioactive. Byers drank nearly 1,400 bottles over three years, stopping the remedy in 1930. After injuring his arm in a fall, Byers was prescribed Radithor by his physician. The most famous death by Radithor was that of American socialite and steel tycoon Eben McBurney Byers. Bailey touted the product as "A Cure for the Living Dead" meaning a cure for mental illness and retardation. It is only a hazard if it is ingested, because of the low. Bailey, was a college dropout and, alarmingly, not a medical doctor. Polonium-210 (P-210) is a high-energy alpha emitter with a radioactive half-life of 138 days. The owner of the company and the developer of the product, Dr. Radithor was manufactured from 1918 to 1928 by Bailey Radium Laboratories, Inc. Though it was suspected at the time, Radithor has since been proven unequivocally to be a quack cure that ended up doing more harm than good. Radithor was a patent medicine that consisted of triple-distilled water containing at least 1 microcurie each of radium-226 and 228.
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