Eben Byers: The Millionaire Dissolved in Liquid Sunshine

In 1932, a headline in the Wall Street Journal shocked the world: "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off." This is the gruesome and tragic true story of Eben Byers, a wealthy industrialist, socialite, and golf champion who became the most famous victim of radium poisoning.

​In this episode, we peel back the lead-lined curtain on the Radithor craze—the "certified" radioactive water marketed as a cure-all for everything from mental ill health to "lost vigor." 

We explore the rise of William J.A. Bailey, the notorious medical quack behind the tonic, and the horrific medical mystery of Byers’ physical decline. From his addiction to radium water to his final days suffering from jawbone necrosis and osteonecrosis, we look at how one man’s death changed the face of the FDA forever.

​If you’re a fan of dark history, medical quackery, and historical true crime, this deep dive into the 1920s radium craze is a must-listen. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

In the late 1920s, Ebon Byers was the toast of Pittsburgh and New York, a national champion golfer, a wealthy industrialist, and a legendary socialite. He lived a life most of us can only dream of. After a minor arm injury, he was prescribed a miracle health tonic, and within five years, he would become the face of an unbelievable medical scandal. This is the story of the sunshine in a bottle that quite literally dissolved a millionaire. I'm Steve, here's Neil, and this is Honourable Mentions. Honourable Mentions. Hello, listener, how are you today? I hope you're well. No one's dissolved you in a bottle of sunshine. Speaking of sunshine, shall we see if he's there? The man that brightens anybody's day. Hello, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 1:10

Well, hello there, Stevie. How are you today, please? Um right, chirpy and chucker.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Chirpy and Chukka?

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yep. I've said you said about a bottle of sunshine, I've said a bottle of sunny delight, so I'm bounced off the walls.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Can you still get Sunny Delight?

SPEAKER_02 1:25

What? That's what I got bought from someone down the street. Looks a bit like Lucas Aiden, it was a bit warm, but it's alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

My son is now twenty-eight years old, coincidentally the same age as yours, or your eldest. And he, when he was younger, if you gave him some cheesy boxets and a glass of Sunny Delight, it was like winding them up with a rocket up his ass. He was unstoppable. You couldn't stop him.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Well I bought it from a bloke just down the street there. It was a bit warm.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

It uh looked a bit like Lucasade, but it was a lot watered down Sonny Delight.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

Yeah, but it's alright. Bit of an igry, but yeah. Still drank it. Only charged me a pound.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Do you have to put them in your hairs out from between your teeth and you finish?

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yeah, there was a few in there.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Hmm. I think I know, but uh we'll talk about that later on now.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Okay. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Ebenezer McBurnie Byers.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Does it ring a bell? Ebenezer McBurney Byers.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

They did some about him as a film about him, wasn't it? The Mippers did it. So write a story about it. The Muppets. There's a story about him. Christmas time.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Christmas Carol.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Ebenezer McBurney Byers was born in Pittsburgh. That's the United States of America.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Oh, that's not what I was thinking of then. He was born in London.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Oh, you're Ebenezer?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

No, this is a different one, I suppose, then, isn't it? He was born on April the twelfth, eighteen eighty. Ooh. To Alexander McBurney Byers and Martha Fleming Byers.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

Burney Byers. How come she had Fleming by Byers and he was McFer McBurney Flyers, where it is.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Easer Byers, Easer Byers, is Ebenezer Byers.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Do you remember that one? Easier Byers, Easer Byers, is Ebenezer McBurney Byers.

SPEAKER_02 3:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

That one. Naughty, naughty, very naughty. Yes. Do you remember? Yes. One of the best songs of the nineties.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Got any Vera's. He was the fourth of five siblings. Right. With the eldest being Alexander McBurnie Byers, Jr.

unknown 3:32

Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Is that right for Nobins?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Then Maud.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Senior.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

No, just Maud.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Then Dallas Cannon Byers.

SPEAKER_02 3:43

Yes, there's a name.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

And then Ebenezer. And then finally John.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah. Got bored at the end of it making names of us. So let's just call him John.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

We'll start with Alexander Jr.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Go after Dallas Cowboys, whatever he was, and then oh just call him John.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

We're spicing things up with Dallas and Ebenezer and then John.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Yeah. I don't know. Stop spitting kids out of. Unless Neil. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

What if his first name was actually Elton?

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

He just used John. It could have been Elton John Byers.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

It could have been John Thomas.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Look into that, please. When we've done if you could Google, that would be much appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 4:25

I'll have a look at that.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

His father, Alexander McBurney Byers Sr. was born on the 6th of September, 1827, in Mercer County, Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Twenty-seven. He was born 1880. Dirty pig. He's 53.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

He could have been a vampire if he was born in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

Could have had the Viagra.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

He was one of ten children born to Daniel Cannon Byers. So this is where the Cannon middle name of Dallas comes in.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

And Maria, whose maiden name was McBurney.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Maria McBurney.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

So that was her maiden name before she married and became a byers. So that's why they've all got the McBurnie's in their middle names and cheeses, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Okay.

unknown 5:15

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

It's all starting to make sense now, isn't it, Neil?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

Yeah, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

At a young age.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Alexander Sr. found work with the Henry Clay Furnace Company.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

An organization which, as you'll know, Neil. Hello, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

With your my first book of nineteenth century metallurgical processes in the Eastern United States of America.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

Yeah, I've got both issues of that.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Both issues.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yeah. Hey, get on. Yeah, bro, both back to back to front.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

They, of course, as you'll know, operated one of the oldest blast furnaces in all of Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Yes, you did, yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

See, I told you, didn't I, when you opened that book on your birth seed, it would come in handy. Didn't I say that?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

You did say that, yes. When I opened it, I went, alright, okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

You threw it across the room and stuck out your bottom lip when you banned me from your party?

unknown 6:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:05

Didn't I say that?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

No, you wouldn't let me because I gave you that book.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

And there we are. But Neil, as well as your book proving very useful, old Alex Sr., by the age of sixteen, was a superintendent, and by his late sixties, he had his own business valued around five hundred thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Which would be the equivalent of two and a half million. Higher, higher. Much higher. Much higher.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

Twenty-five million.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Lower, lower. Say seventeen million.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

No. Say it. No, don't want to.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Say seventeen million.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

I'm not going to.

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Say sixteen million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine. The answer is seventeen million.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Oh, okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

It's worth seventeen million dollars in today's dollars and cents.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Plus all his investments and seats on other company boards that he had. So to put it bluntly, Neil, the buyers were not short of a bob or two, were they?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

No.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

Ebon was educated at the elite St. Paul's boarding school near Concord.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

The airplane.

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Must have been. Yeah, just for a little while. And then at Yale, where he learned to make keys.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

And lost.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Yeah. And he was also renowned for his athletic prowess. And from where he graduated in 1901.

SPEAKER_02 7:42

So he was twenty-one.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Just gone seven o'clock. That year he became connected with the Girard Arn Company.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Girard spelt Girard. G-I-R-A-R-D, but pronounced Girard.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

And what do they produce?

SPEAKER_01 8:01

I have learnt. Well, they're the Girard Iron Company. So I'm guessing they're into plastics.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Or ironware. Can't quite decide which one we are. Or iron brew, yes. But they do iron brew anywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I like iron brew. If anyone's out there watching me a tin of iron brew, I'm happily to consume it. But not drink I had this morning.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Girard was one of his father's businesses, and Ebon was made president and director there after 1904. So it was only three minutes after he left school. He also became associated with the AM Buyers Company in 1901, becoming president in 1909 after the death of his brother Dallas. Dallas when? Most probably due to acute appendicitis.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

He might come back in the shower later on though.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

To honour Dallas. The Dallas Buyers Club.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

One hour later.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Don't get that.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

It's a film now.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

Is it?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

One Oscar's nut.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

One of a globe's a good boob content.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

In the midst of all that hubbub take a note of that now, it's a good word and want to use it in the future.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

Hubbub or missub.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

That's a good word to say, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 9:29

Not really.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

What's all this hubbub? I think so. In the midst of all this jiggery pokery. That's an even better word, isn't it? Make a note of that, write that down. Young Ebon found time to become the US amateur golf champion of nineteen oh six after finishing runner-up in nineteen oh two and nineteen oh three. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Well done you.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Eventually he became the chairman of the Girard Arn Company, and as well as a wealthy and successful industrialist and a champion golfer, he built quite the reputation as a frightful whoopsie.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Frightful whoopsie.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

A ladies' man, a bachelor boy, a champagne swigging racehorse owning socialite.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Right. So you have to put it about a bit then.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah, I don't mean like a frightful whoopsie, as in.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Well, as I was thinking. You're guilty that's sort of frightful whoopsie.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Ebon. Going back to Ebon, bias. He's a good easy good. He travelled by a private railway carriage and hung out with the Vanderbilt and members of other old money American families.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

What's old money about, please?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Old money is people who've had money for a long time. So over here, because we're not America, we've been around since forever. Old money in this country would be your families that were dukes and duchesses and earls and not like Roman coins and stuff like that then. Ladies. No, these were in the royal family and people like that, people whose family have always had money, and it gets passed down through the generations.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Oh, I'll get it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for the explanation.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Whereas industrialists and people like that were new money. So he was in fact really new money, but he was hanging out with the old money. Getting me there, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Thanks for the explanation.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

It was all going swimmingly now.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Up until nineteen twenty-seven, so just before half but all this happened within half an hour. It was all going swimmingly until 1927 when Ebon injured his arm falling from a rail car sleeping berth.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

I thought he had his own little private cabin.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

He did, but you have to sleep in somehow in there. So he was climbing up into his sleeping berth there. For the persistent pain, a doctor suggested he take Radivore.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Ooh, Radithore. A medicine superhero.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

The medicine manufactured by one William J. Bailey.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

WJB.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

It does sound like a a superhero, don't you? Radivore.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

William J. Bailey was a Harvard University dropout who made false claims to be a doctor of medicine. He sounds trustworthy already, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_02 12:16

He does sound trustworthy.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

He had become rich from the sale of a solution he had concocted called Radivore. Radivore? A cure all for everything from mental illness and headaches to diabetes, anemia, constipation, asthma, and other common ailments. Like a diggy shoulder from falling out of a rail car sleeping bed.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Sounds like if you drink it, it kills you, so it would call you, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, I think nowadays if someone said yeah, it cures all that, you yeah.

unknown 12:47

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Alarm bells. But back then, it was the latest thing. Because of how things work, let's face it, still do, Bailey offered physicians a one-sixth kickback on each dose of his medicine they prescribed.

SPEAKER_02 13:07

So just go in there and split him one.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

So if every time every time they sold a bottle, he'd walk in there and kick them.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yes, I wonder why they carried on doing that, really. They got a kickback for every dose of they prescribed.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Doesn't make sense at all, does it? But that's what it says here. Under medical instruction, Ebon began taking multiple doses of Radifort every day, convinced that the drink had restorative powers and was a perfect cure for fatigue and pain. He said it gave him a toned up feeling.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

So it's a bit like our energy drinks nowadays, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I don't know if it gave him a toned up feeling.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

No.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Like Viagra. Don't know. Yeah, it could be, it could be like a monster.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Or something with a bit of Viagra in it.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah. Cool idea, that'd be lethal, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I had terrible sunburn once, and I went to the doctor and he prescribed me Viagra. And I said, Well that out the sunburn. He said, No, but it'll keep the sheets off your legs.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha. Well done.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Thank you. Thank you, listener. Do you reckon our friends Potter's Confectioners are great Yarmouth? Potters Confectioners.co.uk would sell Raddy for. I think they're far too sensible.

SPEAKER_02 14:26

I'd say they're far too sensible. I was looking at their website and the products they produce. I wouldn't have thought they'd be that sort of establishment.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Have you looked at their website now?

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Yes, I have, yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And what did you think?

SPEAKER_02 14:36

I think it looks very nice. The nugget or nugget looks very nice.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

And what sort of produce did you spy?

SPEAKER_02 14:42

The nugget. Dude, go for anything else. Straight to the nugget. It's not like you see in the bricks, it's like in a circle with twirls in it. It looks really nice. Different flavours.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Handmade chocolates.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

No, I didn't look at handmade chocolates.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Handmade chocolates? You didn't look at those.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

No, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 14:59

I might do that.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Do that. Oh well get me bread and gravy.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

What if they give any kickbacks?

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Probably would if you didn't pay.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Buy you nugget and they just whack you in your shin. Hmm. So Ebon obviously wasn't visiting Potter's Confectioners of Great Yarmouth. He still began taking multiple doses of Radifort every day, convinced that the drink had restorative powers. We've already discussed this, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yes, we did, yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Stop going on about it, please. You're gonna leave it then?

SPEAKER_02 15:28

I did. You kept reading it. You weren't reading it.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

You gonna leave it?

SPEAKER_02 15:31

You leave it.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

He stopped taking it.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Sorry, what's that?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

I don't know, I think there was some interference on the nine.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Oh could have been, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

He stopped taking it in October 1930 after downing some 1,400 bottles of say? No.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

In total. Constantly having a wee wee.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

He would constantly be having a wee wee, wouldn't he? He would. But this is when did he start taking it, please? 1927. So in three years he had taken one thousand four hundred bottles in total.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Who counted them?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

I imagine there's a big pile of them at the back his back door.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

It's his store it, so it's gonna be counting.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Probably count every one, because in those days you would have taken them back and got like a couple of cents or something back on your bottles. So he probably had a load that he was ready to get. Yeah. The problem is, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

The problem it was, or the problem is, or the problem whence was that he had lost a lot of weight and was having persistent headaches.

SPEAKER_02 16:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

So that's why he top stopped taking Radithor.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Radithor. His teeth had begun to fall out too.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Yeah, brought it away, I think it's full of sugar.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Thought I should mention that.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

Dirty man.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Not an important. I thought I should mention it. In nineteen thirty-one, the Federal Trade Commission asked him to testify about his experience with Radithor. But he'd become too sick to travel. So the commission sent a lawyer to take his statement at his home.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

When the lawyer arrived, he was told the good news that Ebon no longer had to worry about losing any more teeth. Because his jaw had dropped off.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

His jaw had dropped off.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Because his jaw had dropped off.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

His jaw dropped off.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

His jaw had dropped off. Also his jaw had dropped off. Also, his brain was abscessed and holes were forming in his skull.

unknown 17:43

What?

SPEAKER_02 17:44

You know, like one of those things you get, you squa a squidgy ball with a net round it and you squeeze it and all the things go pop up around the outside through the through the net.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

The nice part was that on top of all that, all the remaining bone tissue in his body was disintegrating. He did, didn't he?

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah. Do you think it was that rough a thaw or do you think he'd just probably not eating or just come down with an illness?

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Do you reckon Lawyer sat let his sandwiches while he was talking to him? Sitting there, no jaw. Tom laying down all your abscesses on his head.

SPEAKER_02 18:20

He'd have to just keep his tongue moist.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

Dry out, wouldn't it? It'd be flapping around your neck. Go out on a windy day and smack you in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Surprisingly, Neil.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Mm.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Hello, Neil, surprisingly, despite his good health, Ebon died on March 31st, 1932, just a few days short of his fifty-second birthday. Turns out that this miracle cure radifore was radium dissolved in water in high concentration.

SPEAKER_02 18:50

Radium.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Alpha, beta, and gamma radiation. Alpha radiation has low penetrating ability and typically does not present a danger.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

But ingestion of radium, like for example, in the form of 1,400 bottles of radithol prescribed by your doctor, would allow for the accumulation of the stuff in your bones.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

Surely you must have felt a bit off beforehand, before his jaw fell off.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Well he did, didn't he? He was losing weight and his teeth were falling out.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Didn't you think to himself, well, do you know what? Every time I've been drinking this radiathor stuff, I'm not feeling too bright. I think I might knock it on the head. Not have another thousand some odd bottles and wait for his jaw to drop off. He did eventually. Eventually, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

So I imagine he did feel alright until such a time as he felt a bit queasy.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

This is a bit of a jaw drop of this one, Steve. You're welcome. You're welcome. It's blowing my mind. Again, you're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

So he said he was too sick to travel and he lost a lot of weight and his teeth were falling out.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

And then his jaw fell off.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

And then his jaw fell off.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

You wouldn't be able to call for anybody, would you? Because you wouldn't better talk. Well you open your mouth and try and talk. It's like when you breathe out, or you can breathe and try and scream. Have you tried doing that?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

The only person in the world who would have understood it would be dentists.

SPEAKER_02 20:20

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Hello. Where you go for your holidays? Oh, it's nice now this time of year. I'm a bit disappointed because if it had radiation, alpha beta, and particularly gamma radiation, that his teeth fell out, his jaw fell off. He didn't turn into the incredible hulk. Which I thought would be what happened.

SPEAKER_03 20:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Without any shielding that would ordinarily be provided by the skin.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

That's the stuff on the outside.

unknown 20:51

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Yeah. Stuff there now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

The highly ionizing alpha radiation was able to cause localized cell damage on an extreme level. And this is ultimately what led to Ebon's extreme cancer and unpleasant death. By the time he was introduced to Radio 4, the idea of radium as a health booster was widely accepted in the United States. So this wasn't an outlier. He was just the one that seemed to suffer it from it the most. He he took more of it probably than anybody else he could afford to. At the time when people were encouraged to take up smoking to cure asthma, people believed that the ingestion of radium could increase energy, relieve pain, and even slow down aging.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

No.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

It was a full fledged industry built on bold claims and a complete lack of scientific oversight.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Oversight? It's not a scientific oversight. This blows a common and got away with it.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Right in the middle was William J. Bailey's company, imaginatively titled Bailey's Business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Name. Do you know I'd I'd trust that if anybody came in to something like I'm selling some medication? Who is it? Oh, it's Bailey's business. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Sounds absolutely left in the toilet, doesn't it? Oh, what's in there? Bailey's just come out of there. Oh, it's Bailey's business. I'm gonna clear it up. Bailey's business had a promise of vitality in every bottle. Appotinants for Radium Cures made false and misleading claims, and Bailey made millions from the sale of what he advertised as bottled perpetual sunshine.

SPEAKER_02 22:33

It's a nice name for it, though in it.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

It is a nice name for something that's going to kill you horrendously.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

Well, yeah. It says yeah, stop doesn't sound like a K forty seven, because you know that's what it's gonna do, that'll kill you.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

It's probably not gonna sell many of them if he called it bottled jaw dissolver, is he?

SPEAKER_02 22:47

No, not really.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Perpetual sunshine sounds much better.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Ebon's case became one of the most infamous examples of the consequences of the radium craze.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

It sparked America's first regulations on radioactive remedies and transformed public health forever.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

So the radium craze, was that the similar to our craze, Ronnie and Reggie?

SPEAKER_01 23:09

No, not the Ronnie and Reggie craze.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

This is the radium craze.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Uh as in.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Remember the Rubik's Cube?

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

That was a craze, wasn't it, that went on? And Tamagotchi. That was a craze that went on. And Hula Hoops, that was a craze that went on.

SPEAKER_02 23:28

Yeah, they still get them.

SPEAKER_01 23:29

What?

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Hula Hoops.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yes, you can. Are you talking potato snacks or are you talking the plastic rings that fit round one's waist? So when you gyrate. The potato snacks.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah, cheese on your ones best.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

They are. I totally agree with you there. I don't know whether our listeners abroad can get hula hoops.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

But my fingers are getting too big to put to stick them on the end of my fingers. I can't get them on my little finger now.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

I wouldn't know if Potter's confectionists at Great Yarmouth sell hula hoops. There's a potato snack variety.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

They might do a kettle chip version of them.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

If you were to go to Great Yarmouth, you'd find plenty of retailers selling the plastic hula hoops to fit round one's waist to gyrate inside and keep spinning.

SPEAKER_02 24:16

I would have thought so.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

I'd have thought so. After his death, this is Ebon Byers.

unknown 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Ebon McBurney Byers. The Federal Trade Commission issued a cease and desist order against Bailey's business for false and misleading advertising. The Trade Commission issued an order banning the sale of Radythor.

SPEAKER_02 24:38

False advertising, just slightly.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Just a bit, isn't it? Like I say, drink Radythor and your jaw will hit the floor. Yeah. The US government cracked down on toxic consumer products.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

That's nice of them.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Which is hard to believe if I've been to America and sampled some of their stuff. And institutions like the Radium Institute led research into gamma radiation, alpha radiation, and their low penetrating ability. So that then must have been the point where Dr. Bruce Banner was turned into incredible old.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Yeah, I thought so.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

When they were doing these tests.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Yeah, it must have been. Yeah, gotta be in it. That's where Spider-Man came from as well, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Oh, yeah, perhaps the spider had creeped in when Dr. Banner was doing his gamma test. Yes, this must be where all this came from. So Ebon Byers is the OG of Marvel Superheroes.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

So she's wearing eye patch.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

For the listener who's only listening and cannot see what's going on, there's just mimed an eye patch rather effectively. That's very good, didn't it? Yeah, I thought it was very good.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Good done that. Good done that as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

The other one was better.

SPEAKER_02 25:53

It was perpetuate, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 25:55

To me, you that bought home eye patch.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yeah, I know. You'd be getting one of them if you're not careful.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

An eye patch.

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Oh say, where you went that up, really, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 26:05

I'm gonna jump in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

You mocked that up, didn't you?

SPEAKER_02 26:09

Today then. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Today. That's not yesterday or tomorrow.

SPEAKER_02 26:14

But today. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

The life of Ebon buyers serves as a warning about unchecked consumer products.

SPEAKER_02 26:22

I should imagine it does. It does rather. That's what we've got trading standards for and stuff like that, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 26:27

I know, people say it's health and safety, go mad. But sometimes you need health and safety.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Yes, because you don't want to have a drink and then your drawer drops off.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

No. But it is business and its misleading claims show how unregulated pseudoscience can have devastating effects.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Yes, I was about to say that myself.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

I'm a bit cross about unregulated pseudoscience.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

Yeah, because they have devastating effects. If only there was some example we could put forward to people. Oh, that's a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

I'm glad you're here now. As a final aside, Neil. William J. Bailey died of cancer on May the 17th, 1949, as a rich man. When his body was exhumed nearly twenty years later, it was found to be ravaged by radiation.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Oh, it's a bit tickled, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

As for Ebon Byers, he had to be buried in concrete so the radiation couldn't leak out and damage the land. So he was his own little private Chernobyl, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Yeah, he was, wasn't he? That's a jaw dropper again.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

That's another one he should have put on the radithor bottle.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Drink this perpetual sunshine and Chernobyl fall off. You nearly laugh then, Neil. Rude. So there you go, listener. That's a rather gruesome episode about Ebenezer Byers. Ebenezer McBurney Byers. Eben Byers.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Burnt from the inside out.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

US amateur golf champion to US amateur dissolving champion in the space of 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Literally fell apart.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Just shows no matter how much money you've got, you can be dissolved in a bottle of radium.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

That your doctor's prescribed to you.

SPEAKER_02 28:27

Makes me feel a bit funny about that one I'd small now.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Not a very nice way to go, was it, listener? But thank you for sticking with us all the way through that rather gruesome episode. I'm going to say gruesome, because I think it was.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

It was. It was definitely a jawdropper.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

It was a gruesome episode, and Neil's going to milk that joke to death now.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

No, I try and say it.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

No, go on.

SPEAKER_02 28:49

No, it's just sounded wrong if I said I'm going to milk you to death.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

No, I think we'll cut that out. Thank you, listener, for listening to us again and putting up with this bull. We will be back again next week for another episode of Honourable.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

That was his jaw dropping off halfway through. Honourable Mentions at HonorableMentions Pod at gmail.com. Honorable mentions pod on all your social medias, please.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Yes, please remember to like and subscribe. We will see you soon, listener, for another episode. In the meantime, stay safe. Stay away from perpetual sunshine in the bottle. And we will speak to you soon on Honorable Mentions.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Bye. Love you. You hang up.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

The Roaring Twenties, hey, the Charleston, jazz music, flapper girls, gangsters, speakeas, the birth of talking pictures, and of course, radioactive beverages freely available from your doctor. They were the days. But for all the fun weeks that we were having, what we didn't realize back then was that we were living in dark times in the years before Honorable Mentions the Hilarious History Podcast. If we knew, we would have all liked, subscribed, shared, and liked the five-star review. It's important you do that because that's how other people get to hear. And it's just not fair to deny anyone this cultural phenomenon, don't you think? You can also find them on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and you can even email the boys directly at honorable mentions podcast email.com. Honorable English play mind that they use. Did you know that they actually research this stuff? Seriously. Stephen does that. And I'm pleased to see that the kings of the guy they speak us are still going strong. The hours I lost dancing and drinking the cafe and the bandits, you would not believe. They wrote and performed the same tune, and you can hear more of their compositions with every screen of music. I highly recommend you do because those catch can screen.