Eben Byers

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Eben Byers
Born	April 12, 1880(1880-04-12) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Died	March 31, 1932 (aged 51) Manhattan, New York
Nationality	American
Other names	Eben McBurney Byers
Occupation	Industrialist Athlete

Eben McBurney Byers (April 12, 1880 - March 31, 1932) was a wealthy American socialite, athlete, and industrialist. Byers earned notoriety in the early 1930s when he died from radiation poisoning after consuming a popular patent medicine made from radium dissolved in water.

[edit] Biography

The son of industrialist Alexander Byers, Eben Byers was educated at St. Paul's School and Yale College,^[1] where he earned a reputation as an athlete and ladies' man. He was the U.S. Amateur Golf Champion of 1906, after finishing runner-up in 1902 and 1903.^[2]Byers eventually became the chairman of the Girard Iron Company, which had been created by his father.^[1]

In 1927, while returning via chartered train from the annual Harvard-Yale football game, Byers fell from his berth and injured his arm. He complained of persistent pain and a doctor suggested that he take Radithor, a patent medicine manufactured by William J. A. Bailey.^[3] Bailey was a Harvard University dropout who falsely claimed to be a doctor of medicine and became rich from the sale of Radithor. Bailey created Radithor by dissolving radium in water to high concentrations, claiming it could cure many ailments by stimulating the endocrine system. He offered physicians a 17% rebate on the prescription of each dose of Radithor.^{[citation needed]}

Byers began taking enormous doses of Radithor, which he believed had greatly improved his health, drinking nearly 1400 bottles.^[4] In the process, he subjected himself to more than three times the acute lethal radiation dose. By 1930, when Byers stopped taking the remedy, he had accumulated significant amounts of radium in his bones resulting in the loss of most of his jaw. Byers' brain was also abscessed and holes were forming in his skull. He died from radium poisoning on March 31, 1932.^[3] He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Due to Byers' prominence, his death received much publicity. The Wall Street Journal ran a headline reading "The Radium Water Worked Fine until His Jaw Came Off" after his death.^[5] His illness and eventual death also led to a heightened awareness of the dangers of radiation poisoning, and to the adoption of laws that increased the powers of the FDA.^[6]

William Bailey was never tried for Byers' death, although Federal Trade Commission issued an order against his business. However this did not stop Bailey from trading radioactive products. Later on, he marketed radioactive belt-clip, radioactive paperweight and mechanism which made water radioactive under his new company 'Radium Institute' in New York. ^[7]

[edit] Further reading

• Roger M. Macklis, "The Great Radium Scandal," Scientific American, 269(2), pp. 94-99, Aug. 1993.

[edit] References

Persondata
NAME	Byers, Eben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Byers, Eben McBurney
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Industrialist, amateur golfer
DATE OF BIRTH	April 12, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH	March 31, 1932
PLACE OF DEATH	Manhattan, New York