30 years after the man drank 1,400 bottles of nuclear radiation water, the remains that were exhumed are still terrifying

Sometimes people’s superstitions in science can reach terrifying proportions!

We all now know to stay away from those radioactive elements, because the particles and radiation released by these elements during the decay process can cause harm to the human body, and sometimes short-term exposure can be fatal.

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

At that time, there was a wave of “radium use” all over the world. The more famous ones were radium watches. People added radium to the hands of the watches to check the time at night;

There are also skin care products such as face masks. The inspiration for adding radium to these daily products is likely to come from when Marie Curie was exposed to radium, part of the skin on her fingers was necrotic due to exposure to radium radiation, and then regrown new skin , some people one-sidedly believe that the use of radium can give the skin a new look.

However, it is incomprehensible that people also added radium to the medicine at that time, and the more famous one here is a medicine called “Radithor (radium water)”.

In fact, radium water is adding a small amount of radium to water. It does not clearly point out its efficacy and effect. Its description only contains a simple sentence: radium water will enhance the life process of the body.

Maybe people at that time really believed that radium “cures all diseases”. Doctors even prescribed this kind of radium water with unclear effects as a prescription drug, and it was very expensive.

As a precious prescription drug at the time, it was difficult for ordinary people to drink radium water regularly, but it was different for the rich-a rich second-generation named Eben Byers at that time, when he first contacted After radium water, he directly regarded radium water as a health care product. He had to drink up to three bottles a day. After drinking more than 1,400 bottles, his body was disintegrated from the inside out.

Eben Byers and Radium Water

The idea of ​​radium water came from the restorative functions of hot spring water for the body, it was made and promoted in 1918 by a Harvard dropout – William JA Bailey, a self-proclaimed medical practitioner Doctor, when in fact he has no medical related qualifications at all.

However, in the era when radium “cures all diseases”, people only recognized radium, and did not recognize whether the person who invented it had medical qualifications, and did not care that this medicine was simply adding radium to water.

Eben Biles is a veritable rich second generation. His father is the chairman of a steel company, and he is also very good. He is an alumnus of Harvard University and an amateur golfer. He is very popular with women.

There is a very simple story about Byers and radium water:

Before a game, Byers fell on his arm. Maybe the pain in his arm made him lose the game and brought him some frustration. At this time, he happened to be in contact with radium water, and he felt that radium water really made him change. better.

Here is an interesting fact. At that time, the market feedback of radium water was really good. Now researchers believe that it may be because radium water is more expensive to sell, which has a placebo effect. After all, many people think that expensive is good.

Byers came into contact with radium water for the first time in 1927. He claimed that radium water made him more confident and more popular with women, so he increased the dosage. Originally, he took one bottle a day. Change to three bottles per day.

Such a dose accelerated the collapse of his body, and he began to feel unwell, starting with weight loss, headache, jaw pain, etc., which doctors judged to be sinus inflammation.

Over time, however, Byers’s body began to develop more serious conditions, his teeth began to fall out, followed by a chipped jaw, and in 1931 even the entire jaw fell out.

A lawyer visited Byers a few days before his death. According to the lawyer’s description, Byers was lying in bed at the time, young and clear-headed, but could hardly speak except for two front teeth. , the entire maxilla and most of the mandible were removed, two holes appeared in the skull, and all the bones in the body were slowly disintegrating.

Why did the bones disintegrate first?

Byers’ situation is exactly the same as that of the infamous “Radium Girls” (production workers at a radium watch factory), where radium ingestion first disintegrates the bones, and then disintegrates the body from the bones to the outside.

This is because radium and calcium belong to the same group of elements, and they have similar chemical properties, so after ingestion of radium, the body transports it to the bones like calcium, rather than expelling it.

Therefore, not only the bones are the first to suffer, but radium will also accumulate in the bones and affect the body for a long time. In fact, the alpha particles released by the decay of radium can easily kill cancer cells, not to mention ordinary cells.

From the first use of radium water by Byers in 1927, until he stopped taking it in 1931, he consumed a total of more than 1,400 bottles of radium water. The doctor at that time determined that Byers contained about 30 micrograms of radium in his body, which was enough to kill him. Three adults died.

In 1932, five years after the use of radium water, Byers died of progressive disintegration. He was only 51 years old at the time, and until then he was a regular athlete.

After Byers’ death, the United States began a long-term “radium investigation”, and the public’s enthusiasm for radium also dissipated in this appalling incident, and various radium products began to go offline.

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

He has been maintaining the safety of radium water, often drinking radium water in public to show that radium water is fine, and claiming that he drank much more radium water than Byers, while he had nothing at all (does this seem familiar).

Clearly William was lying, he didn’t take much radium at all, but small amounts of radium also affected his health, and in 1949 he died of bladder cancer, which is suspected to be caused by radium.

In the mid-1960s, the bodies of William and Byers were re-excavated in order to study the damage of radium to the human body, and researchers found that even after several decades, the remains of the two men were still full of radiation, and the bones were damaged. It was battered and still hot.

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

Therefore, the contamination of radium is still relatively terrible, which is one of the reasons why researchers need to redispose of the remains of William and Byers.

at last

It is believed that when radium water was discontinued, almost 400,000 bottles were sold in total, except for Byers who drank more than 1,400 bottles and William who drank some to prove that radium water was ok, there was no other information about radium water. Reports of health hazards.

In fact, the distribution of radium in the form of commodities is far from only 400,000 bottles of radium water. Those “radium products” purchased by consumers will pollute the environment until today and even for a long time in the future.

Hashtags: radiation physics chemistry nuclear pollution