Man drinks 1,400 bottles of radioactive water, body disintegrates from the inside out

We all know now to stay away from those radioactive elements because the particles and radiation released during the decay of these elements can create harm to the human body, sometimes fatal with short exposure.

However, when Madame Curie first discovered radium in 1898, which is more radioactive than uranium oxide, people became obsessed with radium, a luminous substance.

At that time, there was a wave of "radium use" around the world, better known as radium watches, where people added radium to the hands of their watches to tell the time at night.

The inspiration for adding radium to these daily products likely came from Madame Curie's exposure to radium when part of the skin on her fingertips became necrotic due to exposure to radium radiation and regrew with new skin afterward, and some people had the one-sided belief that the use of radium could refresh the skin.

However, what is incomprehensible is that radium was also added to medicines at the time, the more famous one being the one known as "Radithor" (radium water).

Radium water is a small amount of radium added to water, it does not clearly state its effect and function, its description only contains a simple sentence: Radium water will enhance the body's life process.

Perhaps people at that time believed that radium could cure all diseases, and doctors even prescribed this kind of radium water, which was not even clear about its effect, as a prescription drug and sold it at a very high price.

As an expensive prescription drug at that time, it was difficult for ordinary people to drink radium water regularly, but it was different for the rich people - a rich young man named Eben Byers, after his first contact with radium water, took radium water as a health product and drank up to three bottles a day, and after drinking more than 1400 bottles, his body was cured from the inside out. His body was disintegrated from the inside out.

The idea for radium water came from the restorative properties of hot spring water and was created and introduced in 1918 by a Harvard dropout, William JA Bailey, who claimed to be a medical doctor but had no medical qualifications at all.

However, in the days when radium was a "cure-all", people only recognized it, not whether the person who invented it was qualified to practice medicine or not nor did they care that the drug was simply radium in water.

Eben Byers was a veritable rich kid, his father was the chairman of a steel company, and he was very good, an alumnus of Harvard University, as well as an amateur golfer, very popular with women.

There is a very simple story about Byers and Radium Water.

Before a tournament, Biles fell on his arm, and probably the pain in his arm made him lose the tournament and brought him some frustration, and at this time he happened to come into contact with Radium Water and felt that it made him better.

Here's an interesting fact, the market feedback for radium water was good at the time, and researchers now believe it may have been because radium water was sold at a higher price, creating a placebo effect, after all, many people feel that expensive is good.

Biles was first introduced to radium water in 1927 and claimed that it made him more confident and popular with women, so he increased his dosage, and his intake of one bottle per day was changed to three bottles per day after a year.

This dosage accelerated the breakdown of his body, and he began to feel unwell, starting with weight loss, headaches, jaw pain, and other symptoms, which doctors ruled as sinusitis.

However, as time went on, Byers' body began to suffer more serious illnesses, and his teeth began to fall out, followed by a broken jaw, and by 1931, his entire jaw had fallen off.

A lawyer visited Byers a few days before his death. According to the lawyer's description, Byers was lying in bed, young and clear-headed, but barely able to speak, with the entire upper jaw and most of the lower jaw removed except for two incisors, two holes in his skull, and all the bones in his body slowly disintegrating.

Why did the bones disintegrate first?

In Byers' case, exactly like the infamous "Radium Girl" (a radium watch factory worker), radium intake first disintegrates the bones, and then the body disintegrates from the bones outward.

This is because radium and calcium belong to the same group of elements, and they have similar chemical properties, so after ingesting radium, the body will transport it to the bones like calcium, instead of excreting it.

The alpha particles released by the decay of radium can easily kill cancer cells, not to mention ordinary cells.

From 1927, when Byers first used radium water, to 1931, when he stopped taking it, he consumed more than 1,400 bottles of radium water, and doctors at the time determined that Byers had about 30 micrograms of radium in his system, an amount sufficient to kill three adults.

In 1932, the fifth year after using radium water, Byers died in a gradual physical disintegration at the age of 51, and before that, he was a regular competitor.

After Byers' death, the United States began a long "radium investigation," and the public's fervor for radium dissipated in the wake of this horrific event, and various radium products began to go offline.

However, it is interesting to note that William J. Bailey, the manufacturer of the radium water we mentioned earlier, never thought that Byers' death was related to his radium water.

He has always defended the safety of radium water, often drinking it in public to show that it was fine, and claiming that he drank much more radium water than Byers and that nothing happened to him (does this seem like déjà vu).

William was lying, he didn't consume much radium at all, but his small intake of radium also affected his health, and in 1949 he died of bladder cancer, which was suspected to be caused by radium.

In the mid-1960s, the remains of William and Byers were re-excavated to study the damage caused by radium to the human body, and researchers found that even decades later, the remains of both men were still full of radiation and their bones were riddled with holes, while still hot.

This is because radium has a half-life of 1,600 years, so radium contamination can last a long time. One of the products of radium decay, radon, is also equally radioactive and it exists in the form of gas.

So, radium contamination is still scary, which is one of the reasons why researchers need to re-dispose of William and Byers' remains.

And finally

It is believed that almost a total of 400,000 bottles of radium water were sold at the time of its discontinuation, except for Byers, who drank more than 1,400 bottles, and William, who drank some to prove that it was okay, there are no other reports of health hazards associated with radium water.

The distribution of radium around the world in the form of commodities is far more than just 400,000 bottles of radium water, and the "radium products" that are purchased by consumers are polluting the environment to this day and for a long time to come.