Have you ever thought to yourself “I could use a nice cold glass of radium water”?

radithor radioactive radium water
Take a big swig.
 Sam LaRussa/Wikimedia Commons

No? Neither have I, however back in the early 1900’s drinking radium water was all the rage. At the height of it’s popularity, radium was being put in a multitude of products–makeup, suppositories, condoms, cigarettes, jock straps, food, toys, lingerie, you name it. Radium was touted as a cure-all for everything from impotence to gout.

Here’s a little background on the infamous element. Radium, or Ra, is a chemical element that discovered in 1898 by Marie and Pierre Curie. It is not necessary for human survival and does in fact, cause many adverse health effects, not limited to human tissue destruction, multiple types of cancers, and bone decay.

  • Cosmetic companies rushed to get on the radium bandwagon. They claimed that their radium-infused products could brighten complexions, reduce wrinkles, and get rid of pimples, among a whole host of other things.
  • By (Arma95 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,Wikimedia Commons)
    When radium was combined with paint, it made for a glow-in-the-dark effect. The industrial uses for this were endless. The tragic story of the Radium Girls demonstrated why the implementation of this paint was so dangerous. The women that worked in these factories were encourage to lick their radium-coated brushes in order to create a more pointed tip. Many of these women perished later due to the harmful effects of radium ingestion.
  • Companies all over the world were in on the radium craze. Burkbraun, a German company, marketed a radium chocolate with “rejuvenating” powers.

Radium use was deceiving as its initial effects made it seem like it was improving your health. It caused a temporary stimulation of blood cells which made the user feel a temporary boost of energy. Some people began to regularly use radium-infused products all the while not knowing that they were causing irreversible, long-term damage to themselves.

Headline saying "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off"
Now that’s a headline

One well-known example of this was the case of Eben Byers. Eben Byers was a wealthy socialite, steel mogul, and athlete. Byers started taking Radithor, a popular brand of radium water after he had suffered an arm injury. Wanting to continue the positive effect he thought the Radithor was having on his health, he began consuming three times the suggested dose. It was said that the amount of radium he had consumed was enough to kill three people. At the end of his life, Byer’s body was completely destroyed by the radiation. The accumulation of the radium in his body had caused irreparable damage; he had lost most of his jaw, his skull was riddled with holes, and his brain was abscessed. Byers had to be buried in a coffin lined with lead to prevent any of the radiation from leaking out.

It just goes to show you just because something is natural doesn’t mean that it’s good for you.

What are your thoughts on the commercialization of radium during this time period? What other other quack products have been heavily marketed throughout history?

Learn More:

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-we-realized-putting-radium-in-everything-was-not-the-answer/273780/ (A great source on the history of radium commercialization)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/authorkatemoore/the-light-that-does-not-lie (More on the case of the Radium Girls and the impact that their stories had on the changing of US labor laws)