Radithor drink: a radioactive energy medicine

We all know famous energy drinks like Red Bull or Monster/ But did you know that at the start of the 20th century, the so called medicine named Radithor was used as an energy drink? Not that special, when you know that Coca Cola also started as a kind of couch syrup. But Radithor had another extraordinary trait: it was radioactive.

When I heard about this radioactive energy drink, I was flabbergasted. Did people really drink radioactive drinks? Apparently so, but I needed to know more. That’s why i dove into this strange piece of liquid history. What I found is written down below in this article.

The energy drink Radithor: ingredients

Where Coca Cola has some medicinal effects, or at least it can solve some of your rust problems, Radithor is the opposite. It was from the start a perfect example of quackery.

The story of the Radithor drink starts at the beginning of the 20th century, just after the First World War ended in 1918. At that time, William J.A. Bailey stood at the head of the company and laboratory that would develop Radithor. Not that this William J.A. Bailey had any experience in developing medicine or drinks. He didn’t finish his education and was certainly not a doctor or scientist.

No, you can describe William J.A. Bailey as a smart and slick salesman. But you can easily call him a quack.

The invention of Radithor as an energy drink was not that shocking. It was actually a bottle of distilled water. Unfortunately somebody came up with the idea to add radium isotopes, which made the drink radioactive.

Did Radithor guy William J.A. Bailey tell this during his sales talks? No. He called it an energy drink that would help curing several diseases and impotence. These so called cures for impotence are mostly quackery. Think about Asian cures made of pulverized ivory of hunted down elephants and rhinos. Bailey even promoted Radithor as a drink that could “bring the dead back to life”. Unfortunately, it would rather be the contrary.

Radioactive Radithor drink: victim Eben Beyers and the side effects

You can ask yourself the question: was Radithor really dangerous? Well, the answer is loud and clear: yes. It sounds like a bad idea to drink radioactive water, and it is a bad idea that made several victims. I even found one of them.

One of the most famous examples of Radithor victims is a man called Eben Beyers. He was a pretty famous person in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. He was well known in the higher society but also in the world of sports and business. Eben Beyers was a guy that was good in almost everything. But he became a Radithor victim.

But in 1932, Eben Beyers would suddenly pass away at an age of 52 years old. Cause of death? Multiple cancers caused by the radioactive Radithor. His radium poisoning was so bad that, apparently, they buried him in a coffin made of lead to protect the surroundings for the radiation coming of his body. Apparently, when they opened his coffin in 1965, 30 years after his dead, his remains were still highly radioactive!

The end of the radioactive energy drink Radithor

The dead of Eben Beyers, and the fact that his body was so highly radioactive, forced the responsible institutions in the United States to take severe measures. New laws were decided. Starting from 1932, no medicine or drink could contain radium or any other radioactive ingredient.

Sources and further reading
Wikipedia Radithor
Wikipedia Eben Beyers
Wikipedia William J.A. Bailey
Picture Bailey
Picture Radithor