The man drank 1,400 bottles of radioactive water, disintegrating from the inside out, leaving his body still feverish 30 years later

Sometimes people can be horribly superstitious about science!

We now know to stay away from radioactive elements, because the particles and radiation released during their decay can be harmful to the human body, sometimes fatal even for a short time.

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

At that time, in the world set off a wave of "radium use", the more famous radium watch, people in the watch pointer to add radium in order to see the time at night;

There are mask and other skin care products, in these daily products to add radium inspiration is likely to come from Madame Curie in contact with radium, part of the skin of her fingers because of exposure to radium radiation and necrosis, and after the new skin, some people one-sided think that radium can make the skin look brand-new.

However, it is difficult to understand that radium was also used in medicine at that time. The most famous medicine here is called "Radithor (radium water)".

In fact, radium water is to add a small amount of radium in the water, it does not clearly point out its efficacy and effect, it only has a simple sentence: radium water will enhance the body's life process.

Perhaps at that time people really believe that radium "cure-all", the doctor even this role is not clear radium water as a prescription drug to open, and sell very expensive.

As an expensive prescription drugs at the time, ordinary people are hard to regularly drink water radium, rich but just not the same, when a called Mr Ben Byers (Eben Byers) rich second generation, after first contact water radium, the laser directly to the water as a health food, every day up to three bottles of drink, after drink 1400 bottles, destroyed his body from the inside out.

The idea for radium water, derived from the restorative properties of hot spring water, was developed and promoted in 1918 by William JA Bailey, a Harvard dropout who claimed to be an M.D. but in fact had no medical qualifications.

However, in the era of radium as a cure-all, people only regarded radium, not the medical qualifications of the people who invented it, and did not care that the medicine was simply added radium to water.

Eben Biles is a real rich kid. His father is the chairman of a steel company, and he is also an excellent harvard alumnus, amateur golfer and very popular with women.

Before a competition, Biles fell his arm. Maybe the pain in his arm caused him to lose the competition, which brought him some frustration. At this time, he was exposed to radium water, and felt that radium water really made him better.

There is an interesting fact that the market feedback of radium water was really good at that time. Now researchers think that it may be because radium water was sold at a relatively high price, which produced a placebo effect. After all, many people would think that expensive water is good.

Byers, who was first exposed to radium water in 1927, said it made him more confident and popular with women, so he increased his dose from one bottle a day to three a year later.

The dosage accelerated the breakdown, and he began to feel unwell, initially with weight loss, headaches, jaw pain and so on, which doctors determined to be sinus inflammation.

Over time, however, biles's body began to suffer from more serious medical problems. His teeth began to fall out, followed by a broken jaw, which in 1931 even lost his entire jaw.

A lawyer in byers died a few days ago to visit him, according to the description of the lawyer, byers lying in bed at that time, a young age, the mind clear, but almost can't talk, in addition to the two front teeth, whole most maxilla and mandible were removed, two holes appeared on the skull, with all the bones are slowly collapse.

Why do bones break down first?

Like the infamous "radium girl," the ingestion of radium dissolves first in bones and then outward into the body.

This is because radium and calcium belong to the same group of elements and have similar chemical properties, so after ingesting radium, the body sends it like calcium to the bones, rather than excreting it.

So not only are bones the first victims, radium can build up in bones and affect the body for a long time. In fact, the alpha particles released by radium decay can easily kill cancer cells, let alone ordinary cells.

Between 1927, when Byers first used radium water, and 1931, when he stopped using it, he consumed more than 1,400 vials, which doctors at the time determined contained about 30 micrograms of radium, enough to kill three adults.

In 1932, five years after using radium water, Biles died of gradual disintegration at the age of 51 and a regular competitive athlete.

After Byers's death, the United States began a long "radium investigation," and the public's enthusiasm for radium dissipated in this appalling event, and various radium products began to roll off the production line.

Interestingly, though, William Ja Bailey, the manufacturer of the radium water we mentioned earlier, never thought his radium water had anything to do with Byers's death.

He maintained the safety of radium water, often drinking it in public to show that it was okay, and claiming that he drank far more radium water than Byers and that he had done nothing about it (does this sound familiar?).

It was clear that William was lying. He had not ingested much radium at all, but the small amount of radium he had ingested also affected his health, and in 1949 he died of bladder cancer, which was suspected to have been caused by radium.

When William and Byers were exhumed in the mid-1960s to study the effects of radium on the human body, researchers found that even decades later, their bodies were still radiated, their bones riddled with holes and still hot.

This is because radium has a half-life of 1600 years, so radium pollution can last for a long time. In fact, radon, one of the products of radium decay, is also radioactive, and it exists as a gas.

So radium contamination is still quite scary, which is one reason researchers had to redispose of William and Biles.

It is believed that almost 400,000 bottles of radium water were sold when the production was discontinued, but there were no other reports of health hazards from radium water except byers, who drank more than 1,400 bottles, and William, who drank some to prove that radium water was ok.

In fact, radium in the form of commercial distribution around the world, far from only 400,000 bottles of radium water, those consumers buy "radium products", until today, and even in the future for a long time will pollute the environment.