Immediately, a cry went out to investigate Radithor. Radium Corp.'s factory, recognized in Byers' condition symptoms of radium poisoning.

Joseph Manning Steiner, a Manhattan-based x-ray specialist who had seen several young women working with radium get poisoned in U.S. He started losing weight, had severe headaches, and his teeth began falling out.ĭr. But slowly, the drink began to lose its magic. He recommended the drink to his friends, sent them cases of it, and even fed it to his racehorses.

In the beginning, he felt invigorated and full of energy. Eben was approaching fifty, and it is reasonable to believe that he had lost his touch, as much as with golf as with women.īyers averaged three bottles a day. A box of 24 such bottles cost $30.įor the next three years, Eben took copious amount of Radithor believing it would help him in is game. Radithor sold in half-ounce bottles containing 1 microcurie each of radium 228 and radium 226 as radium salts dissolved in distilled water. He claimed that the radioactive bursts of energy released by the radium atoms stimulated the organs inside the body, such as the adrenals and thyroid, speeding up recovery from various ailments such as headaches, diabetes, anemia, constipation, asthma and so on. Bailey promoted Radithor as a metabolic stimulant and aphrodisiac. Bailey, a Harvard University dropout who falsely claimed to be a doctor of medicine. On the recommendation of a Pittsburgh physician, Eben started drinking Radithor, a patented medicine containing traces of radium-a radioactive element.Ī bottle of Radithor at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in New Mexico. Despite the best ministration of his personal physicians and trainers, Eben complained of persistent pain that was now beginning to affect his golf games. In 1927, while returning on a chartered train from a Yale-Harvard football game, Eben fell out of an upper berth and hurt his arm. Eben eventually became the chairman at his father’s steel and wrought iron company, while continuing to pursue sports into his late forties.Įben travelled frequently around the US to watch teams play. In his youth Eben showed promising talent at sports, finishing runner-up at the US Amateur Golf Tournament in 19, before becoming champion in 1906. Ebenezer Byers was a well known American socialite, son of industrialist Alexander Byers.

Man who drank radium