Eben Byers

Birth Name:

Ebenezer McBurney Byers

Birth Date:

April 12, 1880

Birth Place:

Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

Death Date:

March 31, 1932

Place of Death:

Doctors' Hospital, Manhattan, New York City, New York

Age:

Cause of Death:

Cancer due to excessive radiation exposure

Cemetery Name:

Allegheny Cemetery

Claim to Fame:

The Odd and the Interesting

Eben Byers, popular Pittsburgh sportsman, socialite and industrialist, fell out of an upper berth in 1927 returning from a Yale-Harvard football game and injured his arm. His Pittsburgh physiotherapist, Dr. Charles Clinton Moyar, prescribed a patented drink called ''Radithor." Radithor, a popular and expensive mixture of radium 226 and radium 228 in distilled water, was advertised as an effective treatment for over 150 "endocrinologic" diseases, especially lassitude and sexual impotence. Over 400 000 bottles, each containing over 2 μCi (74 kBq) of radium, were marketed and sold worldwide between 1925 and 1930. Byers was drinking in excess of 3-4 bottles a day for years, claiming the elixir eased the arm pain and gave him a little energy boost. He enthusiastically recommended it to friends, sent them cases of it, even gave some to one of his horses. but stopped in October 1930 (after taking some 1400 doses) when that effect faded. Soon after he lost weight, had horrible headaches and his teeth began to fall out. In 1931, the Federal Trade Commission asked him to testify about his experience, but he was too sick to travel, so the commission sent a lawyer to take his statement at his home; the lawyer reported that Byers's "whole upper jaw, excepting two front teeth and most of his lower jaw had been removed" and that "All the remaining bone tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull." The death of the Pittsburgh millionaire sportsman Eben M. Byers, who was an avid Radithor user, by radium poisoning in 1932 brought an end to this era and prompted the development of regulatory controls for all radiopharmaceuticals.

The Rest of the Story …

Roughly around the time Eben Byers began to ingest radium as recommended by his doctor, the Radium Girls were female factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting radium dials – watch dials and hands with self-luminous paint. The incidents occurred at three factories in the United States: one in Orange, New Jersey, beginning around 1917; one in Ottawa, Illinois, beginning in the early 1920s; and one in Waterbury, Connecticut, also in the 1920s. After being told that the paint was harmless, the women in each facility ingested deadly amounts of radium after being instructed to “point” their brushes on their lips in order to give them a fine tip. The women were instructed to point their brushes in this way because using rags or a water rinse caused them to use more time and material, as the paint was made from powdered radium, zinc sulfide (a phosphor), gum arabic, and water. Much like Byers, the Radium Girls had lasting effects on the labor laws in the United States and Europe following numerous lawsuits following their painful and excruciating deaths and illness from ingestion of radium.

When Eben Byers was laid to rest in the vault of the family mausoleum, his casket was 100% lead-lined to prevent radiation poisoning to family and visitors alike.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Allegheny Cemetery

4734 Butler Street

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15201

USA

North America

Map:

Map of historic Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

Grave Location:

Byers Mausoleum, Section 13, Lot 67, Crypt 6

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery through the main entrance, stay to the left and park at the intersection of Sections 13, 15 and 21. From the road you will see the massive Byers Family Mausoleum and final, radioactive resting place of the Eben Byers.