![]() ![]() Byers’ Fatal Endorsement When socialite and industrialist Eben Byers heard it could almost speed up the healing process, he didn’t hesitate to climb aboard, an endorsement William Bailey was delighted to have. He claimed that by sprinkling radium salts into purified water, his product could stimulate the endocrine system and rid the body of a laundry list of maladies: diabetes, constipation, depression, anxiety, asthma…almost everything. Among the most popular products was sold by Harvard dropout William Bailey, who knew just enough about medicine to be dangerous. Makeup, clothing, condiments, water, suppositories…even jockstraps for “weak, sagging” men were suddenly available, all containing various but always dangerous quantities of radium or thorium. Products containing radium suddenly popped up everywhere. Charles Evans Morris, MD The world didn’t know that in 1927, or at least didn’t known enough to regulate radiation pseudoscience. That “tingling” is gamma radiation beaming through flesh and bone and frying even the DNA of living cells.įor the first time since the discovery of radioactivity brings the blessings of radium water treatment of a highly scientific kind well within the reach of everyone … A child could take this product for years without the slightest injury. Symptoms of acute radiation sickness only manifested if exposure to radium was prolonged, which led unscrupulous patent medicine makers to claim the “tingling” feeling from ingesting or applying radium was beneficial. It is not. Radium is a naturally-occurring, radioactive earth metal studied by Marie and Andre Curie. Radium’s “Tingling” Feeling Before NON-GMOs, gluten-free, organic, and other food labeling trends, there was RADIUM-INFUSED. Byers’ lifestyle wouldn’t tolerate a constant opioid slump, so the young man turned to patent medicine to manage his pain. Although the physical damage was minimal, his fall had pinched a nerve in his arm, causing him chronic pain. Sound asleep on a railcar berth after attending a Yale football game (and likely intoxicated), Byers rolled off and slammed into the car floor’s, his entire body weight coming down on his arm. 1910 But his reckless lifestyle caught up with him in 1927. The tireless Byers worked, partied, played, and caroused his way through life, always with the same wink and a smile. The press followed him as he placed in then finally won the US Amateur Championship in 1906 and tripped over themselves when the dashing young man left behind his dreams of athletic stardom to replace his father as the head of Pennsylvania’s Girard Steel Company (American industrialists of the early 1900s were essentially American royalty). Enjoying the good-natured notoriety, Byers shrugged off the stories with a wink and a smirk. After graduating from Yale College in 1903, tall tales of his athletic and amorous exploits peppered regional and even national papers. Handsome, wealthy, and sociable, 21-year-old Eben Byers became famous mostly for being himself. ![]() Once diagnosed, Byers lived in relative seclusion until he passed away. Tim Bean *Contrary to the almost every “expert” on the Internet, there are NO documented images of Eben Byers with advanced radiation sickness. ![]()
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