MIRACULOUS UNIVERSAL CURE-ALL RADIUM

Radiation is an invaluable force when you want to eat a frozen burrito in the next three minutes, or if you need to find a particularly sneaky cavity. Did you know we even use it to sterilize food? It’s true!

But the wrong amount of or kind of radiation? Well, that can be very super-duper not great. You probably didn’t need us to tell you that; there is, after all, a big scary symbol created for the express purpose of alerting us highly permeable humans that dangerous radiation is present.

Of course, that didn’t stop a few highly unscrupulous or misguided individuals from trying to harness the power of radium to cure (or, you know, deffo not cure) illness.

It’s worth noting that when radiation’s use as a panacea was at its peak, we had no idea how bad it was for you. Consider this bit from the manual of the Radium-ore Revigator, a device from 1928:

“Radio-activity is not a medicine or drug, but a natural element of water, and that since practically all spring and well water that Nature herself gives for drinking purposes contain this highly effective beneficial element, it is but common sense to restore it to water that has lost it just as we restore oxygen to a stuffy room by opening a window.”

USED TO TREAT:

What couldn’t radiation cure? Most things, but that didn’t stop folks from trying. Here are just a few of the supposed uses.

imagesARTHRITIS AND GOUT

Low levels of radiation were discovered in therapeutic hot springs, but how to get all that delicious radiation at home? Enter radium bath salts, designed to be dumped in the tub for the treatment of arthritis and gout.

imagesIMPOTENCE

We have Harvard-dropout William J. A. Bailey to thank for Radithor, a blend of radium, mesothorium, and drinking water. Bailey (who frequently claimed to be a doctor) designed it as a general health enhancer, but with specific focus on treating impotence. Wealthy socialite Eben Byers swore by the stuff and sucked down three bottles daily—right up until the day his jaw fell off. Byers’ eventual death from radium poisoning triggered a cease-and-desist for Bailey from the Federal Trade Commission that soon put him out of business. (Things worked out okay for Bailey in the end; during World War II, he managed the electronic division of IBM.)

imagesSHINY WHITE TEETH

German-made Doramad boasted a secret ingredient Crest and Colgate never had the guts to include: thorium for antibacterial action! Fun fact: In 1944, the Allies were thrown into a panic when they noted a massive shipment of thorium into Germany. They assumed shipment signaled the Axis had created atomic weaponry. In reality? The thorium was for Doramad.

imagesSAFER CIGARETTES

The NICO Clean Tobacco Card was made in Japan, and exported to America. It was a metal plate treated with uranium that was supposed to be slid into a pack of cigarettes. In twenty minutes, the plate would (its creators claimed) lower the cigarettes’ tar and nicotine content by 17 percent. “Here, have one of my cigarettes,” the Clean Plate user could confidently offer. “They’re irradiated for your health!”

imagesFLATULENCE AND SENILITY

The Radium Ore Revigator was perfect in its simplicity: a pot covered in radioactive material that would transform your drinking water into straight-up poison. Generally, the radioactive water was supposed to “create cellular energy and remove cellular poisons,” but some of the specific maladies to be treated included flatulence, arthritis, and senility. In the modern era, scientists found that while a vintage Revigator didn’t add enough radon to treated water to be dangerous, it did infuse it with detectable levels of arsenic, lead, and uranium. The Radium Ore Revigator: At Least It Won’t Kill You In the Specific Way We Advertise.