Radithor was a radioactive patent medicine brand of distilled water containing at least 1 microcurie (37 kBq) each of the radium-226 and 228 isotopes, sold in half-ounce bottles. In 1932, the illness and death of business magnate Eben Byers was unambiguously linked to his fervent use of Radithor, leading to the collapse of the radium fad and the strengthening of regulatory control of pharmaceutical and radioactive products in the United States.
Eben Byers, a wealthy American socialite, athlete, industrialist, and Yale College graduate, who drank 1400 bottles of Radithor beginning in 1927, died in 1932 of various cancers as a result; before he died his jaw had to be removed.
Byers was buried in a lead-lined coffin; when exhumed in 1965 for study, his remains were still radioactive and measured at 225,000 becquerels.