Radithor was a patent medicine that is a well-known example of radioactive quackery and specifically of excessively broad and pseudoscientific application of the principle of radiation hormesis. It consisted of triple distilled water containing at a minimum 1 microcurie (37 kBq) each of the radium 226 and 228 isotopes.
History
Radithor was manufactured from 1918 to 1928 by the Bailey Radium Laboratories, Inc., of East Orange, New Jersey. The owner of the company and head of the laboratories was listed as Dr. William J. A. Bailey, a dropout from Harvard College, who was not a medical doctor. It was advertised as "A Cure for the Living Dead" as well as "Perpetual Sunshine". The expensive product was claimed to cure impotence, among other ills.
Eben Byers, a wealthy American socialite, athlete, industrialist and Yale College graduate, died from Radithor radium poisoning in 1932. Byers was buried in a lead-lined coffin; when exhumed in 1965 for study, his remains were still highly radioactive.
The Wall Street Journal article describing the Byers incident was titled "The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off". Byers's death led to the strengthening of the Food and Drug Administration's powers and the demise of most radiation-based patent medicines.