Rentetzi comments that -
A very rapid expansion in manufacturing and consumer products that contained radium was one of the most dramatic phenomena of the early twentieth century. Radium cleanser, for example, was a sprayer that supposedly killed flies, mosquitoes, and germs as well as cleaned furniture, paintwork, and porcelain. Radium Enamel, manufactured by J. L. Prescott Co. of New York, was a radium product for shining metal surfaces, and Radium was a boot polish made in England by Radium Polishes Ltd. In Germany, chocolate bars containing radium were sold as a "rejuvenator." Radium-brand creamery butter, keyholes and chains, and toys and military equipment coated with radium flooded the market. A trade radium preparation called Nirama was used as a fertilizer to increase the speed of growth in potatoes, flowers, and other plants. ... At the 1904 banquet of the New York Technology Club, well-respected New Yorkers toasted with liquid glowing radium cocktails. Radium roulette, a New York rage, appeared the same year. Participants gambled and played with wheels, balls, and chips all layered with luminescent radium paint.Consumers could buy radium bread and radium pastries made with radium water. What the promoter tagged as "biologically important" Doramad - a radium-enriched toothpaste - was supposed to increase blood circulation and strengthen the tissues of the mouth, with "its radioactive rays" providing "a new, pleasant, mild, and refreshing taste." I've written elsewhere about treats such as the Vita Radium suppositories ('soluble radium' in a cocoa butter base) and radium condoms for men's sexual rejuvenation, with the latter being promoted as "the best radium finest seamless male pouches ... guaranteed for one year" and the former marketed to "weak discouraged men" who could now "bubble over with joyous vitality". The radioactive corset - Shilouette Radiante - was claimed to have a "stimulating, even rejuvenating influence on the cells of the human body, aids fatigue, warms the body, and helps rheumatic pain".
The US$150 gold-plated Radiendocrinator for "sexual rejuvenation" - marketed as "the last word in scientific manufacture" - was worn as an athletic strap under the scrotum during the night. It comprised -
seven radium-soaked pieces of paper about the size and shape of a credit card, covered with a thin piece of clear plastic and two gold-wire screens placed in a beautiful, dark, embossed leatherette case.Rentetzi notes that William Bailey, the father of the Radiendocrinator, was busy selling the Radithor tonic -
Produced by concentrated radium and mesothorium fluid diluted with distilled water, Radithor was packaged in half-ounce bottles and sold by the case of thirty. Between 1925 and 1930 more than 400,000 bottles were consumed by men who wished to restore their virility. One of the first victims of Radithor was Eben MacBurney Byers, a wealthy steel manufacturer from Pittsburgh and well-known sportsman and playboy who died of radium poisoning in 1932. At the recommendation of his doctor he averaged three bottles of Radithor a day for two years.Mr Byers of course came to an untimely end after over-indulgence in chugging "perpetual sunshine in a bottle" and "a cure for the living dead".
A correspondent has naughtily gibed at other scientism, quoting Norman Vincent Peale's exhortation in A Guide To Confident Living (Simon & Schuster, 2003) to -
Learn to pray correctly, scientifically. Employ tested and proven methods. Avoid slipshot praying.ROFLMVFAO, as they say.
