The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Fell Off z475k

The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off

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Cancer Researcher Unearths A Blzarre Tale of Medicine And Roaring '20s Society & RDN WINSLOW Stojj Reponer of THE WALL SIREFT

JOURNAL

In 1927, a steel mogul and socialite named Eben MacBurney Byers tumbled from the top berth of hls private Pullman compartment en route home to New York from the Hanard-Yale football game. He was apparently engaged In some vlgoraus post-game revelry at the m e . What happened next led ultimately to hls mesome death 4 W years later-and to hls place as a central character in a bizarre episode in U.S. medkhe. The saga of Mr. Byers is the subject of a report in today's Journal of the Amerlcan Medical Association. Whlle It has tlrnely implications for contemporary medicine, it also proddes an evocative look at a perlod In medlclne before regulators and lawyers spoiled the hm. "Byers was the persontfication of the Roaring '206," says Roger M. Macklls. principal author of the report and a radlation oncologist at the Dana F a r Cancer Instltute in Boston and the Harvard,t Center for Radiation Therapy. "He was into everything." Golfer and Ladles' Man The chalrman of A.M. Byers Steel Co. and a director of Westinghow ElecMc & Manufacturing, Mr. Byers was also a U.S. amateur golf champion, a horse racing enthusiast and, by reputation, an ardent lades' man. Dr. Macklls's Interest in Mr. Byers nap provoked in part by the doctor's acquisition late in 1989 of four mostly empty bdtles of a patent medlcine called Radithor. It was a status drink: A t $1 a bottle, only the well-to-do could easily afford it. And It was a health drink-marketed by an entrepreneur named William J.A. Batley, It promlsed to cure more than 150 mafadies. Mostly, Mr. Bailey sold It as an aphre W a c . "lmproved blood supply sent to the pelvic organs and tonlc effects upon the nervous system generally result in a great improvement in the sex organs," touted a pamphlet entitled " W t h o r , the New Weapon of Medical Science," which was, mailed to doctors in the mid-1920s. Radlthor's magic lngredlent was radium. The concoction rode the crest of the Mild Radium Therapy movement, a phenomenon in US. social circles shortly after the Curies discovered radium at the turn of the century. It was based on the premlse that radiation, taken in minute doses, prodded a metabolic kick to the body's endocrine system and Infused depleted organs with energy.

Distilled Water and Radlum Dr. Macklis says Mr. Bailey "was a born con man" who had been peddling varlous miracle cures, especially for tmpotence, for years. But none achleved the success of Radithor, an over-the-counter tonlc he asserted was the result of years of laboratory research, but which was really just dlstilied water laced with one mlcm curie each of two Isotopes of radlum. He sold more than 400.000 bottles for $1 each-a 40070 profit, says Dr. Macklis, adding: "He was the chief impresario In the radioactive patent medicine fleld." Mr. Byers was 47 when he fell out of the berth and Injured hls arm. Over the next several weeks, he complained of muscular aches and a rundown feeling that undermlned hls performance both athletic and, It was rumored, sexual. Dr. Macklls reports. A Pittsburgh physiotherapist recommended Radithor. For the next two years, Mr. Byers gulped two or three bottles a day. His actlvities while under its influence aren't well documented. But Inltially, he was a p parently so satisfied with the results that he sent cases of it to business partners and girlfriends, and even fed it to his race horses. The sdence of the day gave at least a measure of to Mr. Byers's faith in radlum water. And U.S. regulatory agencies at the tlme were more concerned about truth in advertising than about potential harmful effects. The Federal Trade Commission, for Instance, took action against makers of potions that lacked d levels of radioactivity. Over two years. Mr. Byers guzzled perhaps 1,400 half-ounce bottles of the potion, Dr. Macklis says. He finally quit in October 1930, complaining to his doctor then that he'd lost "that toned-up feeling." He began to lose weight and experience headaches; many of his teeth fell out. By 1930, the FTC had begun to raise questions about another d claim of radium-water medicines: that they were harmless. It asked Mr. Byers to testify at hearings in 1931, but by then he was too slck. An agency lawyer dispatched to take his statement at his mansion on Iang Island was aghast. Mr. Byers's "whole upper jaw, excepting two front teeth, and most of his lower jaw had been removed," the lawyer reported. "All the remaining bone tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull." By the end of the year. the FTC ordered Mr. Bailey's operations closed. And on March 3!. 1932, Mr. Byers died in a New York City hospital. He was 51. The next day, a front-page headline in the New York Times proclaimed the medical examimer's initial autopsy findings: Mr. Byers died of radium poisoning. The news alarri~edsome of the upper class, although James J. Walker, then mayor of New York City and an avowed of radium water, at first resisted wa.mings to stop. In Pittsburgh. there were whispers in the press that a lady frlend of Mr. Byers had also died of a mysterlous ailment. Health officials in some cities ordered store shelves cleared

of such potions. And some doctors stepped forward with evidence of other cases. A doctor went on a New York radio program and held radioactive bones of one victim in front of a Geiger counter to demonstrate "the deadly sound of radium," Dr. Macklis says. Dr. Macklis bought his bottles of Radithor from a dealer in medical antlques; he's not saylng how much he paid. Then he and two colleagues at the Harvard t Center, Marc R. Bellerive and John L. Humm, conducted a radiochemical analysis of the Radithor. It confirmed that Radithor was laced with significant amounts of radlum Isotopes.

Real Effects Using a complex computer program, the scientists reconstructed the radium's llfe cycle through dozens of generatlons as it decayed to form new isotopes, and calculated the level of Mr. Byers's exposure. "He took enough radlum to klll four people If he took It all at once," Dr. Macklls says. "The mystery is how did Byers survive so long, feeling so good. and have such a super-lethal burden In his body?" He speculates that despite Mr. Byers's macabre demise, it is possible that chronic, lowlevel doses of powerful "alpha" radiation really do have at least a temporary stimulative effect, probably by provoking a defensive response that triggers production of fresh blood cells within the bone marrow. Dr. Macklis and his colleagues also believe if alpha radiatlon could be safely harnessed, it could become a precise medical weapon that would attack cancerous cells without damaging nearby healthy tissue. Two years ago. Dr. Macklis succeeded in accomplishing that in mke. It was his search for information on the impact of alpha radiation on people that led Dr. Macklis to the lost story of Mr. Byers, which he pieced together from medical literature, press s and historical documents. In the end. Mr. Byers's death caused the collapse of the radioactlve patent medicine Industry. But all along. Mr. Bailey insisted that his potion was safe. After all, he said, he had probably drunk more Radlthor than anyone else, and he felt flne. Nearly 20 years after Mr. Bailey's death in 1949 of bladder cancer, medical researchers exh~~mf-d his remains. They had been ravage€, by radiation. They were still "hot" when )lulled from the ground.