The amount of people who perished from Radithor is unknown, but Bailey had sold approximately 400,000 bottles of the tonic – 1,400 of which Byers himself purchased. The US Federal Drug Agency shut down Bailey’s business, but Radithor had already done its damage. After three years of incessant use, his teeth fell out his jaw had to be removed holes formed in his brain and skull and he eventually perished in 1932 from radium poisoning. Byers took at least three times the prescribed daily dose. It was supposed to alleviate aches, pains, and invigorate one sexually. Radithor was a toxic solution of radium dissolved in water. Bailey, a fraudster who claimed to be a doctor but wasn’t. Conventional medication did not seem to help, so he answered an advertisement for a miracle elixir called Radithor, sold by a man named William J.A. In 1927 Byers fell from a train on his way to a golf championship and hurt his arm. Saubermann also claimed radioactivity lowered blood pressure and reduced blood viscosity.Įbenezer McBurney Byers (1880-1932) was a wealthy US champion amateur golfer, an alumnus of Yale and socialite who ran a large iron manufacturing company. It enhanced kidney function, stimulated the digestive process, increased excretion of uric acid, soothed nerve function relieving insomnia and increased sexual activity. Saubermann from Berlin, addressing a British Medical Association (BMA) conference, stated that radon (then known as radium emanation or niton) in small doses promoted growth in healthy cells. Radium degrades much more quickly than uranium and consequently produces more radiation. Radium is formed by the degradation of uranium, a naturally occurring radioactive element which is also present in minute quantities in the Bath mineral waters. In the process, the nuclei release various forms of radiation, some of which can be harmful although this was not realised in the early days of radiation research. Radioactive elements “degrade” to new elements by the breakdown of their unstable nuclei. This led to the discovery that radon, a radioactive gas produced by the nuclear degradation of radium, was also present. Strutt detected minute quantities of radium in the hot springs. But there was no real evidence to support this claim and by the end of the nineteenth century people were on the point of giving up the search for a curative principle. Some thought the geothermal heat differed from ordinary heated water and might explain the healing effect. Various constituents of the water’s mineral content were suggested as the curative principle but all were eventually dismissed. Before the last century, many people believed there was some special property in the hot springs of Bath which could cure diseases or at least help to restore health.
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