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That Time Everyone Loved Radium: What Could Go Wrong? · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
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Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our own
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Speaker 1: mythical super producer, Max the Radiation Williams, Max Radiation Boy Williams.
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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm just glowing, y'all. You always are you? If
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Speaker 2: you are? You doing a new skincare routine? Hopefully not
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Speaker 2: involving radium? Yeah, or the condition no well fare maybe
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Speaker 2: the written maybe radium could knock the condition right out?
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Speaker 2: Why not try at this point? Why not? Why not? Well,
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Speaker 2: we'll tell you why not? Max it just a little bit.
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Speaker 1: They called me, Ben Bullen. You also just heard mister
1:06
Speaker 1: Noel Brown there and the rumors are true, fellow Ridiculous Historians.
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Speaker 1: We have returned from some time at sea. We're pleased
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Speaker 1: as punch, or perhaps pleased ask plutonium to rejoin you today.
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Speaker 1: So we've all heard of radium, right.
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Speaker 2: M Yeah, And can I just take a quick moment
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Speaker 2: to say I missed you guys, Ben, I saw you,
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Speaker 2: but we didn't record. This is the first recording we've
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Speaker 2: done in a little bit, and we've both been under
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Speaker 2: the weather for travel crowd, and I'm happy to be back. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: radium is certainly something that we learned about when studying
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Speaker 2: the periodic table in school, and I think we all
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Speaker 2: learned about Marie and.
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Speaker 1: Pierre Curie and the discovery of radium. That was going
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Speaker 1: to be I totally forgot you guys. That was going
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Speaker 1: to be part of my intro today and a cooled
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Speaker 1: intro because one fun, dumb fact about me, I'm one
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Speaker 1: of those people who can name every element on the
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Speaker 1: periodic table. It's a useless skill.
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Speaker 2: Incorrect by the slanet parties.
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Speaker 1: Thanks, but we know the periodic table, despite having a
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Speaker 1: weird name, and despite being somewhat imperfect, it is a
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Speaker 1: phenomenal assembly of some amazing revelations, and some of those revelations,
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Speaker 1: as we're going to discover, are indeed deadly revelations. We
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Speaker 1: always talked about Marie Curie, We've mentioned her in the
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Speaker 1: past multiple times.
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Speaker 2: Absolute hero of the show.
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Speaker 1: Her and Pierre, as you said, discovered radium in eighteen
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Speaker 1: ninety eight. But when they discovered it, and these are
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Speaker 1: very clever people, when they discovered it, it is safe
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Speaker 1: to say they weren't sure what they were getting into.
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Speaker 2: No I mean, that's kind of a lot of the
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Speaker 2: stories we talk about n ridiculous sister involving science. There's
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Speaker 2: a whole lot of f around and find out, and
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Speaker 2: oftentimes you have folks like Marie and Pierre finding out
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Speaker 2: not in the best possible way for science. No.
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Speaker 1: Originally, the CUIs, being scientists, had they had an idea
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Speaker 1: of what radium could be used for, or what we
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Speaker 1: would call the applications, and they said, look, radium can
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Speaker 1: help with cancer treatment, or it can help the emergent
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Speaker 1: science of X ray technology. They had no idea about
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Speaker 1: the merch they had no idea about how capitalism and
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Speaker 1: American marketing worked. This was a panacea. This was snake
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Speaker 1: oil medicine. This was a cure all that you could
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Speaker 1: use to treat anything.
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Speaker 2: Sort of like how we're seeing a lot of the
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Speaker 2: marketing and rollout surrounding artificial so called artificial intelligence. Huh's
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Speaker 2: let's just give it a try. Who knows what. We
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Speaker 2: don't have to worry about the knock on consequences. We'll
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Speaker 2: figure that out later. And here's one for the older heads.
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Speaker 1: Back in that halcyon era of the nineteen nineties, when
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Speaker 1: every business discovered the word digital. I've had to put
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Speaker 1: the word digital on everything they made, even.
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Speaker 2: If it did make sense. And now now it seems
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Speaker 2: so data, doesn't it, But you still do see it.
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Speaker 2: It is one of those remnants that has stuck around.
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Speaker 2: So the early nineteen hundred saw radiums well. Actually, to
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Speaker 2: quote our brand new research associate, Dylan, not Dylan the
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Speaker 2: Tennessee pal, but Dylan will come up with a cool
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Speaker 2: nickname for you later this first episode with us, so
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Speaker 2: we're excited to have him join the ridiculous history research cadre.
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Speaker 2: But yeah, the nineteen hundred saw radium's luminescence property is
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Speaker 2: becoming quite in vogue.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is ubiquitous at some point. You're seeing it
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Speaker 1: mentioned on the tens for medicine, You're seeing it advertised
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Speaker 1: as a feature of industrial products. It's great for marketers
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Speaker 1: and radiation poisoning aside, it's great for it's great for
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Speaker 1: that consumer and corporations because the luminescent properties are instantly recognizable, right,
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Speaker 1: They're distinctive. So if you are making watches, you are
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Speaker 1: going to use radium based paint on your watches or
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Speaker 1: your airplane dials. Right for instrumentation, if you are going
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Speaker 1: to a party and you want to make an impression
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Speaker 1: as a young lady, you're using radium infused glowing makeup
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Speaker 1: on your face, but also your teeth.
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Speaker 2: Oh and also your fingernails. Yeah. Also, why not go
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Speaker 2: ahead and since we're at the party and we're having
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Speaker 2: a good time throwing a few back, let's just put
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Speaker 2: a little radium in the cocktails for fun. Yeah yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 2: it is uh boil boy. It makes me think of
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Speaker 2: like Matt Hatter syndrome and just you know, these substances
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Speaker 2: that were just used so ubiquitously and then caused real,
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Speaker 2: real problems down the road. And of course that is
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Speaker 2: because unbeknownst at the time, this radium exposure was incredibly
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Speaker 2: harmful and detrimental to the long term health of the
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Speaker 2: individuals exposed to it.
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Speaker 1: Absolutely, and you've probably heard folks of parables like the
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Speaker 1: story of the Radium Girls, one of the most well
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Speaker 1: known cases of documented overexposure to radium. Their activism and
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Speaker 1: their outcry directly led to stricter workplace laws that also
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Speaker 1: themselves led to the creation of stuff like OSHA, the
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Speaker 1: Occupational Safety and Health Administration. But there's a lot more
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Speaker 1: to it. So we're giving you. We've given you the gist.
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Speaker 1: Let's dive in. Let's understand why the United States went
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Speaker 1: absolutely head over heels for radium. And to answer that
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Speaker 1: question on first step has to be learning what radium
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Speaker 1: is and meeting the Curis and.
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Speaker 2: Dylan.
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Speaker 1: I'm just going to tell you not all the jokes
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Speaker 1: lanned every time.
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Speaker 2: It's okay, it's you know, curry, Currey's curry, potato potatos.
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Speaker 2: We do know about the sarbon, the sarball, the absolutely
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Speaker 2: luminous university if we're talking about glowing stuff more, you know,
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Speaker 2: in the scientific world in Paris, France, where Pierre taught
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Speaker 2: chemistry at the School of Physics and Marie attended college
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Speaker 2: there as a student of physics and maths. Yeah, I
7:20
Speaker 2: said it. I'm saying maths. I just like the way
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Speaker 2: it sounds. They had an immediate connection because of shared
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Speaker 2: interests and absolute, unflinching love of science and scientific discovery,
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Speaker 2: and they did eventually get married in July of eighteen
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Speaker 2: ninety five, so just a year later, very quick, quick courtship.
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Speaker 1: And because of their common interests, they were propelled along
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Speaker 1: a professional career as well as a romantic one by
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Speaker 1: the end of eighteen ninety five, our buddy Pierre has
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Speaker 1: published his thesis, his doctoral thesis on the connection between
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Speaker 1: temperature and magnetism, and this was a real banger for
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Speaker 1: the target audience. As a matter of fact, it established
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Speaker 1: what we today call Curie's law.
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Speaker 2: That's right. And then in eighteen ninety seven Marie would
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Speaker 2: join her husband working for the university herself in the laboratory,
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Speaker 2: helping Pierre expand on these discoveries around magnetism. That is,
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Speaker 2: until a new interest caught their attention in a very
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Speaker 2: very real way that would change their lives and carve
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Speaker 2: a path.
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Speaker 1: Through history and science, an irradiated glowing path. So this
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Speaker 1: is how stuff breaks down. Marie is diving into the
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Speaker 1: research of a French physicist, this guy Enton, Henri the Querol.
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Speaker 1: He presented just a really weird talk in eighteen ninety six,
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Speaker 1: on February twenty fourth, about uranium rays. And he was talking,
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Speaker 1: you know, to other people in this rarefied air of
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Speaker 1: scientific research. And while he is in his presentation, folks
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Speaker 1: just picture ted talk, all right, that's the way he's doing.
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Speaker 1: Amrie's doing a tech talk. He's explaining to onlookers that
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Speaker 1: when uranium based crystals are exposed to sunlight, they leave
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Speaker 1: a permanent shadow on photographic plates. This is a weird
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Speaker 1: thing to just tell people. So he demonstrates it on stage,
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Speaker 1: and this is kind of the emergent X ray technology
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Speaker 1: we were teasing at the top here. So Marie Curie
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Speaker 1: sees a lot of potential in this, and she says,
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Speaker 1: what if other elements can do this as well? What
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Speaker 1: if there's a chemical compound that's as good or better
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Speaker 1: than uranium.
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Speaker 2: For X rays? That's right, So she used a principle
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Speaker 2: that was always near and dear to a dear friend
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Speaker 2: of the show, Lauren Vogelbaum, back when she was on
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Speaker 2: tech stuff with frenemy of the show than the Quistor Stricklin.
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Speaker 2: The piezoelectric effect, which is a very fascinating effect which
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Speaker 2: refers to the ability of certain materials, elements, minerals, et cetera.
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Speaker 2: Quartz is a good example to generate an electrical charge
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Speaker 2: when they are they have a stress applied to them.
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Speaker 2: That's something that Lauren was always fascinated by. I remember
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Speaker 2: whenever the pioso electric effect could come up, she would
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Speaker 2: light up. So this is exactly what Marie used to
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Speaker 2: test her theory about other chemical compounds, so the strength
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Speaker 2: of radiation isn't dependent upon the compound itself, but it's
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Speaker 2: dependent on the levels of uranium or thorium that it contains.
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Speaker 2: She also found that many chemical compounds of the same
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Speaker 2: element are different in structure and in chemical characteristics. Finally,
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Speaker 2: the ability to radiate is tied directly to the interior
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Speaker 2: of the atom, and only uranium and thorium contain the
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Speaker 2: ability to give off radiation at this point in time.
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Speaker 2: That is the case in the trade jectory of her discoveries,
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Speaker 2: and you know, the greater scientific body of knowledge around
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Speaker 2: these elements.
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Speaker 1: And so, folks, what would you do if you were Marie?
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Speaker 1: For anybody who's been in a successful loving relationship, probably
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Speaker 1: you want to brag to your partner, right, because we're
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Speaker 1: always trying to get our significant others to think of
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Speaker 1: us as cool people. So she runs and tells Pierre.
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Speaker 1: Pierre joins her and says, let's keep researching this together.
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Speaker 1: Fast forward. It's June eighteen ninety eight. They achieved Marie's
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Speaker 1: long sought after discovery, and the next month, a publication
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Speaker 1: in July breaks the news to the world, the Cures
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Speaker 1: have discovered a substance three hundred times the strength of uranium,
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Speaker 1: and they named it polonium. And then the Cures ride
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Speaker 1: back in eighteen ninety eight, December twenty sixth to the
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Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences and they say, dj college voice, another one.
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Speaker 1: We found something else. We're calling this one radium.
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Speaker 2: So in nineteen o three, while Antoine, Henri baccorel Pierre
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Speaker 2: and Marie Currie shared in a Nobel Peace Prize in
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Speaker 2: Physics for their discoveries and radiation, the rest of the
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Speaker 2: world was looking to the future wrapped up in this
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Speaker 2: new marketing craze around the miracle compound, as it was pitched,
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Speaker 2: known as radium.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is where we see the origin of the
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Speaker 1: radium fad, or what Dylan rightly calls the radium era.
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Speaker 1: The radium fad reaches US shores around nineteen four And
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Speaker 1: do check out our earlier episodes on medicine shows and
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Speaker 1: other quack kaka meimi cures and griffs, folks. You will
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Speaker 1: enjoy that. And you definitely should know about medicine shows.
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Speaker 1: So that's kind of the milieu in which this is occurring.
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Speaker 1: We don't have things like the FDA in its current form.
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Speaker 1: You know, we don't have as a young nation, we
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Speaker 1: don't have these federal resources and institutions to keep corporations
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Speaker 1: and doctors honest. You can literally have a good enough pattern,
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Speaker 1: as we call it in British drifting, and you can
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Speaker 1: go and sell whatever kind of monarchy you want, as
13:29
Speaker 1: long as you get away before the law finds you. Look,
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Speaker 1: I don't want to be unfair. I'm not saying that
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Speaker 1: all these people selling radium branded stuff were themselves bad
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Speaker 1: faith actors, because they did see doctors across the pond
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Speaker 1: use radium to kill cancerous cells, right, and they didn't know,
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Speaker 1: just like the curies didn't know at the time, they
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Speaker 1: didn't know about the damaging effects of radiation exposure. This
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Speaker 1: was still very new, untrammeled ground.
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Speaker 2: Right, and it wasn't until the thirties that evidence of
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Speaker 2: this type of poisoning became very apparent and the government
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Speaker 2: then had to act. But we'll get to that.
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Speaker 1: There is an insane number of companies during the radium
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Speaker 1: era that included radium in whatever they were already making
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Speaker 1: as as like a selling point. So the idea was
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Speaker 1: radium as a concept was so popular, so established in
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Speaker 1: the zeitgeist that if you're walking through your local market
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Speaker 1: or general store, you probably would be more likely to
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Speaker 1: buy anything that had the word radium on it.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the stuff of the future, you know, Man,
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Speaker 2: it glows. What else do you want? So we start
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Speaker 2: to see some sort of trendy applications of radium. In
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Speaker 2: nineteen oh four, for example, someone named L. D. Garner
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Speaker 2: came out with a product, a drink called Liquid Sunshine. Yeah,
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Speaker 2: I remember that one did not have any LSD in
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Speaker 2: it either, just lots of poison. This was a radium
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Speaker 2: based water beverage and it was mega popular in the
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Speaker 2: early twentieth century, specifically around New York City.
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Speaker 1: And again, I know it's easy for some of the
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Speaker 1: younger folks in the crowd to make fun of us
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Speaker 1: New Yorkers at the turn of that century who were
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Speaker 1: drinking radium based water beverages. But listen, folks, if you
15:31
Speaker 1: drink Laqui, you don't really have room to talk now,
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Speaker 1: kind of. It was the lacua of its day. It
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Speaker 1: just happened to have radium in it, for sure.
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Speaker 2: And Dylan also points out a fad that I think
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Speaker 2: you and I and Max all remember where there were
15:45
Speaker 2: like gummies and various sweety snack kind of things that
15:49
Speaker 2: would like dye your tongue and teeth certain colors. And
15:53
Speaker 2: speaking from experience, they also had the potential to dye
15:55
Speaker 2: your your poop.
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Speaker 1: And then in nineteen fourteen we have the again we
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Speaker 1: have a water based thing, the Great Radium Spring Water Company,
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Speaker 1: which was originally Fred m Ostia's company. They they come
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Speaker 1: directly from another bit of quackery, the concept of restorative waters,
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Speaker 1: which is very popular here in the United States, and
16:20
Speaker 1: is indeed the reason that one of our streets in
16:24
Speaker 1: Atlanta is named Ponce de Leon. This is a true story.
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Speaker 1: The Ponce City Market, where our office was based for
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Speaker 1: a number of years, contains one of the seven sacred
16:37
Speaker 1: springs of Indigenous Native culture. It's a fun fact if
16:41
Speaker 1: you ever get the chance to visit. There is a
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Speaker 1: water tower that still collects water from that spring. So
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Speaker 1: people were very into restorative waters or curative waters.
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Speaker 2: Fountain of youths. I'm right, yeah, for sure. And this
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Speaker 2: also I think I'm pretty synchronous with the work of
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Speaker 2: John Harvey Kellogg, who was a huge fan of enemas
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Speaker 2: and also things like restorative waters and sort of like
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Speaker 2: med health spa kind of treatments, and of course the
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Speaker 2: inventure of corn flakes.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so our pal fred In Oistier. He originally
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Speaker 1: names his water company Pittfield's Pine Crest Spring and then
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Speaker 1: changes the name because he's like, ah, we got to
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Speaker 1: get around with this radium. All the kids love this
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Speaker 1: radium stuff. We're gonna call our company a Great Radium
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Speaker 1: Spring water company.
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Speaker 2: Doing jazz hands what he's saying. And they made some
17:38
Speaker 2: pretty bold claims that we're not necessarily you know, accurate,
17:43
Speaker 2: always creating lore. Yeah, for sure. They claimed that the
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Speaker 2: water was from the titular Great Radium Spring wherever the
17:53
Speaker 2: hell that was supposed to be, but later went on
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Speaker 2: to pivot, you know, uh and sell ginger ale instead, right,
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Speaker 2: And they maybe they had to pivot because there were
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Speaker 2: so many other radium beverage groups getting in the mix.
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Speaker 2: I think it was nineteen twenties.
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Speaker 1: We got Bailey Radium Laboratories, who made Ratathor.
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Speaker 2: Radathor, my favorite pokemon in his final form, Radathor Energy drinks.
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Speaker 1: Radathor. Bailey Radium and Ratathor therefore are founded created by
18:26
Speaker 1: William J. Bailey and their advertisement. So if you see
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Speaker 1: them in the grocery store, their advertisement is triple distilled
18:35
Speaker 1: water that is guaranteed to contain at least one micro
18:39
Speaker 1: curi each of radium two twenty six and radium to
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Speaker 1: twenty eight.
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Speaker 2: It's a feature, not a bug, you know, yes, yes,
18:47
Speaker 2: just just look at the little radium for a treat.
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Speaker 2: He actually went so far as to try to back
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Speaker 2: up this claim with something of a reward for anyone
18:57
Speaker 2: who could prove he's proved me wrong, has proved that
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Speaker 2: it contained any less than the advertised amounts of one
19:04
Speaker 2: microcuity each of those two substances. He also offered a
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Speaker 2: guarantee that Ratathor is harmless. Oh good, and every respects great.
19:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is weird because they were positioning
19:19
Speaker 1: themselves to be the red Bull or the monster Energy
19:23
Speaker 1: or the Celsius of their day. And this again, it
19:27
Speaker 1: shows us how how much more blurry the line was
19:30
Speaker 1: between medicine and a treat because Ratathor is getting prescribed
19:38
Speaker 1: by actual facts. Shout out to you, Lauren, actual facts,
19:42
Speaker 1: doctors to cure injuries. You can pour it right on there,
19:47
Speaker 1: you know, yeah exactly, just you know, slug half of
19:50
Speaker 1: this and then pour the rest of it on the gunshot.
19:52
Speaker 2: You'll be fine. And a real wolverine situation, you know, right,
19:58
Speaker 2: bite down and pour the ra out of thor on
20:01
Speaker 2: the wound. So, uh, we know that there's there's war ahead.
20:05
Speaker 1: While we're on the subject of food and bev, I
20:08
Speaker 1: think we should talk about German radium chocolate.
20:11
Speaker 2: Can we can we please? Radium man? Yes? From buck
20:16
Speaker 2: on brown, not brown b r o w n brown
20:20
Speaker 2: b r a u n perhaps pronounced brawn. Likely this
20:23
Speaker 2: did not make it into the US, sort of like
20:25
Speaker 2: today you can't find a proper kinder egg anymore. Yeah,
20:28
Speaker 2: because they think we're too stupid and we're gonna choke
20:30
Speaker 2: on you know, the little tiny toy inside, which you
20:33
Speaker 2: know to be fair. Maybe is true, but it is
20:35
Speaker 2: refreshing to be in Europe where you can get a
20:37
Speaker 2: proper kinder egg.
20:39
Speaker 1: That's one of the first things I buy in town. Also,
20:41
Speaker 1: I don't like the I don't like the pseudo kinder eggs.
20:45
Speaker 1: There's different halves.
20:47
Speaker 2: It's a little for the thing. It's like a little
20:51
Speaker 2: almost like a nutella biscuit thing, like it's got like
20:54
Speaker 2: a little pocket of dunk A use type icing that
20:57
Speaker 2: you put on this other thing. Not far events, but yes.
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Speaker 2: Radium chocolade was likely not sold in the States because
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Speaker 2: at this point the awareness of the dangerous surrounding radium.
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Speaker 2: By nineteen thirty one was much more widely known. It
21:12
Speaker 2: was advertised as an energy bar type food with the
21:15
Speaker 2: tagline eat this and feel great. Got it. I'm gonna
21:20
Speaker 2: do a quick translate. I kind of know roughly what
21:23
Speaker 2: it is, but it's curly fun. Yeah, and German it
21:26
Speaker 2: would be sn z dasfu linzy zich gross ahtim. Yeah,
21:34
Speaker 2: there you go, and it goes.
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Speaker 1: We see this craze going through other products as well,
21:40
Speaker 1: like makeup and skincare. There was a ton of stuff
21:44
Speaker 1: released in Europe and in the United States that said
21:48
Speaker 1: if you put radium on your skin, that glow will
21:52
Speaker 1: that lumin essence will do something curative for your epidermis.
21:58
Speaker 2: There were recurative right there we go.
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Speaker 1: We're talking creams, salts, suppositories.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, you know what, I can't help but think
22:07
Speaker 2: about And I'm sure you're on the same page, and
22:09
Speaker 2: I'm sure Max is too. At least it's crossed your
22:11
Speaker 2: mind with all of this stuff, especially the glowing aspect
22:15
Speaker 2: of it and the sort of nineteen twenties trendiness of it.
22:17
Speaker 2: All the Fallout games, there's so many, you know, the
22:22
Speaker 2: glowing one, all of these ghouls that have clearly been
22:24
Speaker 2: so irradiated that they're actually putting out like a ghoulish
22:28
Speaker 2: green glow. It's just such a cool franchise and I'm
22:32
Speaker 2: so stoked about the next season of the series coming
22:34
Speaker 2: out soon. And to jump in here, think about what
22:38
Speaker 2: is the best Nuca Cola at least in terms of
22:41
Speaker 2: like is the Niccola radium. It's the quantum quantum which radiates.
22:46
Speaker 1: There you go, yeah, yeah, I mean we see this
22:49
Speaker 1: all the time in the intersection of capitalism and scientific innovation. Also,
22:56
Speaker 1: there's something Look, we're adults here, folks, I'm going to
23:00
Speaker 1: keep it pg.
23:01
Speaker 2: Thirteen.
23:01
Speaker 1: But there's something that's always baffled me about humanity ever
23:04
Speaker 1: since the early days. The suppository idea humanity runs into
23:10
Speaker 1: every new discovery, and some member of the species says, also,
23:15
Speaker 1: we should see if we could put it in our butts.
23:16
Speaker 2: What if we put it on our butts? For everything?
23:19
Speaker 2: You know, what can harm fire? For the wheel for rockets,
23:23
Speaker 2: radium is no different. Who was putting fire in their butt.
23:26
Speaker 2: It seems like you learn your lesson from that one
23:28
Speaker 2: real quick. Yeah, I just don't know why this is
23:31
Speaker 2: a continual thing that humans do. So in Radium, the advertisers,
23:37
Speaker 2: some of whom were grifters and some of whom were
23:40
Speaker 2: just misled.
23:43
Speaker 1: Yes, they were seeing this panacea, right, this cure all
23:48
Speaker 1: for everything from acne to wartz, A lot of stuff
23:53
Speaker 1: that could be a more vague general condition like having
23:59
Speaker 1: a bad headache, or a very general condition like having
24:03
Speaker 1: what is called insanity.
24:05
Speaker 2: Ye did also stuff like blind this, yeah, or just
24:08
Speaker 2: general malaise, you know, for pep Spoon your way to
24:11
Speaker 2: health with Vita Meta Radium.
24:14
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, And I love the nomenclature for the specific
24:18
Speaker 1: names in this era of fake medicine. Also, all right,
24:23
Speaker 1: so these are like the new kids on the block
24:25
Speaker 1: when it comes to snake oil salesman, right, They're basically
24:29
Speaker 1: the Wall Street version of this.
24:31
Speaker 2: Which we have an episode on just this concept of multiples.
24:35
Speaker 2: I'm sure if you go back, but I do seem
24:36
Speaker 2: to recall a recent one where we talk a lot
24:38
Speaker 2: about the origin of the term snake oil and various
24:42
Speaker 2: quack remedies.
24:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the one we mentioned there at
24:47
Speaker 1: the top. We've got to find the name of that
24:49
Speaker 1: when Max. If you could look that up, you'll be
24:53
Speaker 1: an absolute legend. Not that you aren't already a legendary
24:58
Speaker 1: glowing ghoul.
24:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, not that you aren't.
25:00
Speaker 1: Already good safe it. So we also know that radium
25:04
Speaker 1: found its way into household goods. Every I think everybody
25:11
Speaker 1: in the US has one of those mysterious under the
25:15
Speaker 1: sink storage spots for clean cleaning and stuff. And sometimes
25:20
Speaker 1: you just get it for one specific kind of cleaning
25:23
Speaker 1: and it just lives in your house under the sink
25:26
Speaker 1: for years afterwards.
25:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, until you know the one time where you actually
25:30
Speaker 2: need to use it, perhaps if that ever even comes.
25:33
Speaker 2: But it's better to have than not to have, or
25:34
Speaker 2: have even four of them because you forgot you bought
25:36
Speaker 2: it already, and then the actual situation comes up where
25:39
Speaker 2: you need it and you realize, man, this this happened before,
25:41
Speaker 2: and I have too many bottles of sewer fly drain cleaner.
25:45
Speaker 2: So companies were quick to jump on the radium train.
25:49
Speaker 2: Household goods companies folks manufacturing things like paint, because they
25:54
Speaker 2: love the luminescent properties of radium and that also extended
25:59
Speaker 2: to everything from life light switches, giving a glow in
26:02
Speaker 2: the dark quality to your switch so you could see
26:03
Speaker 2: it in the dark. We now know how to do that,
26:05
Speaker 2: I think without radium, thank god. So this would of
26:08
Speaker 2: course make finding the switch in the dark a little
26:11
Speaker 2: bit of an easier task. We even saw it in
26:14
Speaker 2: children's toys. And we are of course segueing gently into
26:19
Speaker 2: the true dark side of the knock on consequences of
26:23
Speaker 2: this radium craze.
26:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, you knew what was going to happen, folks. A
26:29
Speaker 1: lot of this goes back to maybe not specific toy manufacturers,
26:34
Speaker 1: but more the manufacturers of components that were used in
26:39
Speaker 1: finished products, most especially makers of radium luminescent paint. The
26:46
Speaker 1: big one here is the United States Radium Corporation. They
26:51
Speaker 1: had a claim to fame a paint called undark, which
26:55
Speaker 1: I love.
26:55
Speaker 2: By the way, that's solid branding.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, Undark is is luminescent because it contains radium. It's
27:02
Speaker 1: invented by a guy whose name I love, doctor Sabin
27:07
Speaker 1: Arnold Vaughan Sochoki, and he cop notch name, doctor Vaughan Sochaki,
27:13
Speaker 1: which does sound like something I would make up in
27:15
Speaker 1: an improv set h he says, look, yeah, it's well
27:20
Speaker 1: and good that I've made this magic glowing paint for
27:24
Speaker 1: watchfaces and airplane instrumentation.
27:27
Speaker 2: But I see a future that's much bigger. We can
27:30
Speaker 2: take un dark and we can paint entire rooms with it,
27:33
Speaker 2: entire houses on dark. Slow. Your role on Shaki such
27:43
Speaker 2: Skia and him coughing at the end is because of
27:46
Speaker 2: the radium. He's losing it. He's also just so excited
27:49
Speaker 2: he can't contain himself. The light thrown off by radium paint,
27:53
Speaker 2: he says, on the walls and ceilings would in color
27:56
Speaker 2: be like soft, gentle moonlight, and it would also be
28:00
Speaker 2: you know, killing you softly, you know, with its song.
28:04
Speaker 2: So we're getting to it here. It is the devastating
28:07
Speaker 2: reality of radium use. We're going to jump into the
28:09
Speaker 2: story of the Radium Girls, which we teased there at
28:13
Speaker 2: the top of the episode, and then get into a
28:14
Speaker 2: person named Evan Byers. So, although radium products continue to
28:25
Speaker 2: exist in the US well into the early thirties, the
28:27
Speaker 2: first signs as we mentioned, and the government kind of
28:30
Speaker 2: starting to take notice of these horrific effects started to
28:35
Speaker 2: become clear. Nearly a decade prior to that. You know,
28:41
Speaker 2: the wheels of regulation do grind slowly, It would seem
28:44
Speaker 2: the same as it ever was. Two of the most
28:46
Speaker 2: prominent cases that brought some of these dangers to light
28:50
Speaker 2: are the case of Grace Fryer and her fellow Radium Girls,
28:53
Speaker 2: and then, of course, as we teased the case of
28:55
Speaker 2: Eben Byers, why don't we start right up with Grace
28:57
Speaker 2: Fryer and the Radium Girls.
28:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and on our way to that, folks, one thing
29:02
Speaker 1: we want to establish here is why radium poisoning in
29:07
Speaker 1: particular is so terrible for you.
29:10
Speaker 2: This is it.
29:10
Speaker 1: Basically, we've been dancing around this, but to give it
29:13
Speaker 1: to you playing the human body treats radium like calcium,
29:18
Speaker 1: so it deposits the radium deep within your bones. And
29:22
Speaker 1: once the radium infiltrates your bones, it can just chill there.
29:26
Speaker 1: It can be dormant, in the state of torpor for
29:28
Speaker 1: years and years, years before you get the first sign
29:32
Speaker 1: of radium poisoning.
29:34
Speaker 2: That's why it took so long.
29:35
Speaker 1: It's just sort of irreversible damage. That's why it was
29:39
Speaker 1: such a stealth killer, and.
29:42
Speaker 2: It took them some time to start to see these results.
29:46
Speaker 2: Playing out. It's a nopes. I guess we might have
29:50
Speaker 2: should have done our homework a little more thirty years
29:53
Speaker 2: ago or so, when right when people like Grace Friars
29:56
Speaker 2: start realizing something's wrong. Now she is. She is one
30:00
Speaker 2: of those.
30:01
Speaker 1: People we mentioned earlier, a dial painter. So if you
30:04
Speaker 1: have a wristwatch or if you have an airplane, two things.
30:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure everybody has.
30:11
Speaker 2: The dream a wristwatch and an airplane, and every household the.
30:14
Speaker 1: Backing on your watch face has to be made by someone.
30:17
Speaker 2: And isn't that funny? Ben the trend of this. Obviously
30:20
Speaker 2: they figured out better ways to do it, but like
30:22
Speaker 2: the indiglow watches, you know, obviously it's safer alternative to radium,
30:27
Speaker 2: but something that kind of carried forward because of this
30:31
Speaker 2: sort of precedent here with the glowing watch faces. It
30:34
Speaker 2: wasn't theory a good idea, And again, like the glow
30:37
Speaker 2: in the dark everything, I'm glad they figured out a
30:39
Speaker 2: way to do it because it is a cool effect
30:41
Speaker 2: and quite useful in a watch.
30:43
Speaker 1: Oh, this is going to lead to a weird tangential
30:45
Speaker 1: story at the end, by the way, folks, So stay tuned,
30:48
Speaker 1: all right, Grease Fryar has painted loads and loads of
30:53
Speaker 1: dials with this on dark paint.
30:56
Speaker 2: It's her job.
30:57
Speaker 1: She checks into the factory. She's about that life. She
31:00
Speaker 1: does this every day. It is like so many other
31:03
Speaker 1: factory jobs, repetitive, tedious, and demands precision because she has
31:09
Speaker 1: to apply paint to the tiny numbers on the dial d.
31:14
Speaker 2: T B T twelve one two three, and that's her
31:21
Speaker 2: whole day.
31:22
Speaker 1: So when you're doing this, you have to continuously move
31:26
Speaker 1: the brush and pointing it in different directions, and you
31:30
Speaker 1: can't mess up the dial. You can't paint too far
31:33
Speaker 1: over the boundaries. So the thing that Grace and a
31:37
Speaker 1: lot of the Radium girls start doing is dragging the
31:40
Speaker 1: bristles of the brush between their lips, redding it with
31:44
Speaker 1: their tongue. It's kind of like how people, some people,
31:48
Speaker 1: often older readers, have the habit of licking their finger
31:52
Speaker 1: when they turn the page.
31:53
Speaker 2: Mm hm yeah, but Radium or no, probably not the
31:58
Speaker 2: best practice. Don't lick paint. Just gotta be a better
32:02
Speaker 2: way to do that. So, yeah, she was doing this
32:05
Speaker 2: day in and day out, painting hundreds and hundreds of
32:08
Speaker 2: these dials. Grace is quoted saying this about her experience
32:12
Speaker 2: working in the factory or on the line. Our instructors
32:15
Speaker 2: told us to point them with our lips. I think
32:17
Speaker 2: I pointed mine about six times to every Watchtyal. It
32:22
Speaker 2: didn't have any taste, and I didn't know it was harmful.
32:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly this, And this makes sense for anybody who's
32:31
Speaker 1: a painter or an artist hanging out with us today.
32:35
Speaker 1: We've all done that thing at some point where you
32:37
Speaker 1: try to you just improvise some way totally to get
32:40
Speaker 1: a finer tip on the brush.
32:42
Speaker 2: So this makes sense.
32:44
Speaker 1: They're following like, they're not dummies, they're good employees. They're
32:49
Speaker 1: doing what their bosses told them to do. And the
32:53
Speaker 1: Radium Core management has what a lot of therapists call
32:58
Speaker 1: toxic positivity. Yeah, they just keep saying everything is great,
33:03
Speaker 1: this is gonna be fine. Yeah, lick the tip of
33:06
Speaker 1: that radiated brush. And also, hey, you're not just factory workers.
33:13
Speaker 1: This is a radioactive olive garden. When you're here, your family,
33:18
Speaker 1: your brand ambassador. So ladies, go rep the product. Put
33:22
Speaker 1: on dark on your nails, put it on your face,
33:25
Speaker 1: put on your teeth, you know, just inject it right
33:29
Speaker 1: into your neck. Why do we add makeup for teeth,
33:32
Speaker 1: radium core. That's a great idea, Ben, I think you're
33:35
Speaker 1: onto something.
33:35
Speaker 2: Let's put that. Let's put a pin in that one. Yeah,
33:37
Speaker 2: And some of these little tricks evolved organically as ways
33:41
Speaker 2: of kind of passing the time at work, trying all
33:43
Speaker 2: these different methods of using the paint in some of
33:46
Speaker 2: these fun ways. And to your point, Ben, it then
33:48
Speaker 2: became this sort of brand ambassador quality of parading the
33:52
Speaker 2: stuff and evangelizing the wonders of radium and radium paint.
33:57
Speaker 2: So Grace didn't really notice any effects for years until
34:03
Speaker 2: one day she was working at a bank, well after
34:06
Speaker 2: her career as a radium girl had come to an end,
34:09
Speaker 2: and she blew her nose into a handkerchief and it glowed.
34:15
Speaker 2: I don't love hearing that. Also, Also, we do have
34:19
Speaker 2: knowing bad guys in this story. Of course they knew,
34:22
Speaker 2: they knew what they knew. Yeah, just to emphasize, right,
34:26
Speaker 2: everybody who was involved with the actual chemistry and production
34:31
Speaker 2: of un Dark, and all the C suite guys they
34:35
Speaker 2: wouldn't touch this stuff. They knew what was up.
34:38
Speaker 1: So how inhuman is it for them to watch these
34:43
Speaker 1: poor workers throwing this odd everywhere? So Grace has the
34:48
Speaker 1: glowing stop booger moment, and then she realizes maybe upper
34:55
Speaker 1: management hasn't been telling her the entirety of the truth.
34:58
Speaker 1: Now her condition progresses. By nineteen twenty two, she starts
35:03
Speaker 1: to lose teeth. She gets severe acute pain in her jaw,
35:07
Speaker 1: so she goes in for an X ray, right, and
35:09
Speaker 1: X ray technology has been involving in step with this
35:12
Speaker 1: as well, And the doctors look at the X rays
35:14
Speaker 1: and say, holy crap, you have severe bone decay.
35:18
Speaker 2: What happened?
35:19
Speaker 1: It's as though the calcium that should be in your
35:21
Speaker 1: bones was replace something else.
35:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the reason we know about Grace is because
35:28
Speaker 2: she was the one who stood up and spoke up
35:30
Speaker 2: and became sort of a figurehead for all of the voiceless,
35:35
Speaker 2: you know, workers and folks that had been consumers. Likely
35:39
Speaker 2: we don't know all those stories, but we know Grace's story.
35:42
Speaker 2: This set her on a mission to get justice for
35:46
Speaker 2: herself and those in her same position who were knowingly
35:52
Speaker 2: exposed to the stuff by some really bad actors. So
35:56
Speaker 2: specifically we're talking about the dial painters. They had, now
35:59
Speaker 2: for purposes of public perception, been dubbed the Radium Girls
36:05
Speaker 2: and they were railing against the harmful conditions that they
36:08
Speaker 2: were exposed to by US Radium Corporation.
36:12
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and in doing so, there's no two ways about it,
36:16
Speaker 1: they saved people's lives, people who otherwise would have been
36:21
Speaker 1: exposed to this stuff. But as in any underdog story,
36:25
Speaker 1: this is a real speaking truth to power situation. The
36:29
Speaker 1: good guys are outnumbered and they are out financed, so
36:32
Speaker 1: they have an uphill battle in the courts. Luckily, there
36:37
Speaker 1: are good guy lawyers who come by to contribute their
36:40
Speaker 1: efforts to the cause. In particular, I'm thinking of Raymond Barry,
36:44
Speaker 1: the lawyer who, along with the Radium Girls, launched a
36:48
Speaker 1: lawsuit against the company US Radium Corps for two hundred
36:52
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars. Because of the horrible conditions that
36:59
Speaker 1: each of these people were laboring under. They were living
37:03
Speaker 1: on borrowed time, They literally physically probably would not survive
37:09
Speaker 1: the full grind of a court case of this magnitude
37:12
Speaker 1: was something as well funded as this corporation, so they
37:16
Speaker 1: made the decision. Well, they were forced to settle for
37:19
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars each and an annual payment of six
37:24
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. Better than nothing, but to them I think
37:28
Speaker 1: more important than the cash was the recognition of what
37:31
Speaker 1: had happened.
37:32
Speaker 2: It's exactly right, sadly as triumphant relatively speaking, an outcome
37:38
Speaker 2: as this was, and a win for all of the
37:41
Speaker 2: folks that did not have a voice who were exposed
37:43
Speaker 2: to the stuff. Grace Fryar was, in her pursuit for justice,
37:48
Speaker 2: not able to outlive the harmful effects of the radium exposure,
37:53
Speaker 2: and passed away sadly on October twenty seventh of nineteen
37:56
Speaker 2: thirty three at the age of thirty four.
38:00
Speaker 1: We can't overemphasize that, folks thirty four years old. We
38:05
Speaker 1: have one other story one to wrap up with here
38:07
Speaker 1: about the radium era. This is a name we mentioned
38:11
Speaker 1: that might be familiar to some of us in the
38:14
Speaker 1: audience today, Eben.
38:15
Speaker 2: Bayer's slight trigger warning for this one. It's a little
38:18
Speaker 2: grizzlier than the last one. Inst in real body horror stuff,
38:22
Speaker 2: So Eben Byers. We'll get into it with humor. He
38:28
Speaker 2: is called a US amateur golf champion, and the phrase
38:32
Speaker 2: amateur golf champion feels paragole. Yeah right, I'm a professional amateur. Anyway.
38:41
Speaker 1: I love that he's an elderly Orphan. He's the president
38:46
Speaker 1: of am Buyers Company out there in Pittsburgh, and in
38:50
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven, he's got a pretty gnarly arm injury
38:54
Speaker 1: because the guy's always going golfing, right, and his doctor C. C.
38:59
Speaker 1: Moya says, all right, Evan, here's what you gotta do.
39:04
Speaker 1: Your arm's not feeling one hundred percent. You gotta drink
39:07
Speaker 1: this new thing I just learned about. It's called Ratathor. Yeah,
39:13
Speaker 1: pound half of it and dump the rest right on
39:15
Speaker 1: the arm.
39:16
Speaker 2: Yes, what can I just say that CC moyar sounds
39:20
Speaker 2: like the kind of thing that would be emblazoned on
39:22
Speaker 2: the side of one of those quack snake oil salesman wagons.
39:26
Speaker 2: Just I'm sorry, No, no offense to anyone with his name,
39:29
Speaker 2: But something about a doctor named C. C. Moyar just
39:32
Speaker 2: seems a little bit suss. So at the time of
39:35
Speaker 2: this prescription, he was fifty years old, and over the
39:38
Speaker 2: next three years until in nineteen thirty, he consumed a
39:42
Speaker 2: lot of this stuff.
39:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, three bottles of Ratathor per day on average. And
39:48
Speaker 1: remember boy, he said about Radathor earlier, folks, this is
39:52
Speaker 1: the one that was guaranteed yes to have at least
39:55
Speaker 1: one micro cury each of radium two twenty six and
39:59
Speaker 1: two twenty eight.
40:00
Speaker 2: Two flavors, yeah, at the same time. And if it
40:03
Speaker 2: didn't have that, the company would give you one thousand
40:06
Speaker 2: dollars if you could prove it didn't have all that radium.
40:09
Speaker 1: So this is this is one of the ones that
40:12
Speaker 1: definitely is going to poison you.
40:14
Speaker 2: And uh oh yeah.
40:16
Speaker 1: As as as he goes through, you know, chasing that
40:20
Speaker 1: radium dragon, his teeth begin to fall.
40:24
Speaker 2: Out because as we mentioned, this stuff hits you right
40:28
Speaker 2: in the bone density. It replaces that calcium that gives
40:32
Speaker 2: us healthy bones, and his teeth begin to fall out,
40:35
Speaker 2: as you said. And an FTC employee, Robert Wynn, in
40:40
Speaker 2: the course of the case surrounding this gentleman and his condition,
40:45
Speaker 2: had this to say, and this is the grisly bit.
40:48
Speaker 2: His whole upper jaw except two front teeth and most
40:51
Speaker 2: of his lower jaw had been removed. All the remaining
40:56
Speaker 2: bone tissue of his body was slowly disintegrating and were
41:00
Speaker 2: actually forming in his skull. A more gruesome experience in
41:05
Speaker 2: a more gorgeous setting would be hard to imagine. What
41:08
Speaker 2: is the gorgeous setting He's referring to I wonder Pittsburgh unclear.
41:17
Speaker 2: We do know this.
41:19
Speaker 1: This is a terrible way to go, folks. As far
41:22
Speaker 1: as death and illness, we do know this was happening
41:26
Speaker 1: to other people. Again, Ratathor was something was an energy drink.
41:32
Speaker 1: People were drinking it like you would drink an energy
41:35
Speaker 1: drink today. So Buyers is not the only person who
41:39
Speaker 1: suffers these terrifying consequences. But because he is of the
41:44
Speaker 1: patrician class, because he is a businessman, a professional, amateur
41:50
Speaker 1: golf champion professional, Yeah, yep, no, yeah, that's technically true.
41:56
Speaker 1: Because of his place in society, more people are paying
42:00
Speaker 1: attention to what happens to him, and this leads to
42:04
Speaker 1: a higher public awareness of radium in general.
42:07
Speaker 2: In that goes two ways, Ben, Because of that position
42:10
Speaker 2: that he occupied in the upper echelons of society there
42:14
Speaker 2: in Pittsburgh, he was something of an influencer. He was
42:17
Speaker 2: an evangelist of this stuff, and he was telling all
42:20
Speaker 2: his friends about it, and yeah, I bet he, you know,
42:23
Speaker 2: offered it to his golfing buddies, not to mention, feeding
42:25
Speaker 2: it to his race horses, and gifting cases of it
42:29
Speaker 2: to his business colleagues and there's an incredible article that
42:34
Speaker 2: Dylan linked us to from o r AU dot org
42:38
Speaker 2: that has a bunch of great details about this case.
42:40
Speaker 2: And this man seemed like an interesting fellow. He apparently
42:43
Speaker 2: was quite the ladies man, and he earned at Yale
42:48
Speaker 2: as a young man the nickname Foxy Grandpa.
42:51
Speaker 1: Foxy Grandpa. All right, uh, well, well, we love a
42:56
Speaker 1: foxy Grandpa. We also know that we also know that
43:02
Speaker 1: despite the grizzly ends that Grace Fryer, the Radium Girls,
43:05
Speaker 1: and Evan Bayer's met, their suffering did lead to positive change,
43:11
Speaker 1: Challenging something as powerful as a corporation at a time
43:16
Speaker 1: when women's rights were still considered a controversial thing. That's huge,
43:22
Speaker 1: and the fact that the Radium Girls won their case
43:25
Speaker 1: in any form, shape or fashion is monumental. That Evan
43:30
Speaker 1: Bayer's tragedy makes another comparable, lasting impact in the progression
43:36
Speaker 1: of things that we enjoy today but don't really recognize
43:40
Speaker 1: until they're gone. Stuff like government regulations like hey, freedom, Yeah,
43:46
Speaker 1: let's not put fingers in the chili. That used to
43:49
Speaker 1: be a hot take, and companies used to say, don't
43:52
Speaker 1: tread on me, man. We can't we can't afford to
43:56
Speaker 1: not have a few fingers go into chili. You're gonna
43:59
Speaker 1: mess are business? Well, you know that's where the flavor
44:02
Speaker 1: comes from. And Ben to your point earlier about regulation
44:05
Speaker 1: in terms of what we now have, you know, for
44:08
Speaker 1: better or worse, at times, an agency, the FDA that
44:11
Speaker 1: is responsible for overseeing and regulating and making sure that
44:16
Speaker 1: things that consumers consume do not contain poison at the
44:20
Speaker 1: very least.
44:20
Speaker 2: But again results may vary. But the case against Bailey
44:25
Speaker 2: Radium Laboratories was actually filed by the Federal Trade Commission.
44:30
Speaker 2: It's almost like when you you know, it's like you
44:33
Speaker 2: get somebody that's done one really horrible crime on another
44:36
Speaker 2: technicality like racketeering or whatever it might be, because you
44:40
Speaker 2: can't get them for the other thing. And they didn't
44:42
Speaker 2: have the mechanisms at this time to necessarily pursue them
44:46
Speaker 2: for putting out poison and not saying that's what it was.
44:51
Speaker 2: So they had to get them almost on like I
44:53
Speaker 2: don't know, fraud, yes, claims that's exactly thank you. And
44:58
Speaker 2: the doctor, by the way, doctor C. C.
45:01
Speaker 1: Moyer is lying his keyster off, oh yeah all the time,
45:06
Speaker 1: and he's saying, look, I drink the same stuff I
45:09
Speaker 1: recommended to my guy. I'm fifty one years old, I'm active, I'm.
45:14
Speaker 2: Healthy, healthy racecourse.
45:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, so people are still not until these consequences occur.
45:22
Speaker 1: People still don't understand what's happening when they take radium.
45:28
Speaker 2: But they are.
45:29
Speaker 1: But the companies have a spidery sense. They know this
45:34
Speaker 1: is not entirely on the up and up. They definitely
45:36
Speaker 1: know it doesn't fix stuff that they claim it fixes.
45:39
Speaker 1: They definitely know they can sell a lot of it
45:41
Speaker 1: and become wealthy.
45:44
Speaker 2: Well, you know what the markup was, ben right, I
45:45
Speaker 2: think crazy Town dude, and that guy Bailey was made
45:50
Speaker 2: a very very wealthy man. But this case from the
45:53
Speaker 2: FTC did finally put an end to his radium reign.
45:57
Speaker 1: Good, I mean, Jesus eight. This ultimately leads to OSHA.
46:02
Speaker 1: This leads to workers' rights.
46:04
Speaker 2: OSHA being the Occupational safety and basically an organization that
46:09
Speaker 2: makes sure that work conditions are not detrimental. Yes workers, Yes, yes, exactly.
46:15
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that sounds boring to a
46:18
Speaker 1: lot of people here in the United States. Pretty often,
46:23
Speaker 1: when you get your very first job somewhere in the
46:28
Speaker 1: employee area, there's going to be usually an elderly laminated
46:33
Speaker 1: side yep, from OSHA.
46:35
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And you know you hear people gripe
46:38
Speaker 2: in about OSHA inspections and things like that, OSHA violations,
46:43
Speaker 2: like it's some sort of you know, gripe basically, but
46:46
Speaker 2: the alternative is far far gripe here. Yes, yeah, and
46:50
Speaker 2: I like that turn of phrase. There.
46:52
Speaker 1: There's one story we're not going to have time to
46:55
Speaker 1: get to, but I want to shout out David Hahn,
46:58
Speaker 1: the radioactive boy Scout.
47:00
Speaker 2: You remember this guy, I know him by name, but
47:03
Speaker 2: I'd love just the tiniest bit of overview if that's.
47:06
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, of course, this is the kid who uh
47:09
Speaker 1: this classic boy Scout stuff is a Michigan kid who
47:13
Speaker 1: built a homemade nuclear reactor who is seventeen.
47:18
Speaker 2: I want to go get her. You love to see it.
47:20
Speaker 2: He figured out that he could scrape radioactive material from
47:25
Speaker 2: household project products, including you know, watch faces. Yeah, and
47:29
Speaker 2: you know it's interesting. We didn't talk about this, but
47:33
Speaker 2: Mercury occupied a similar oh yeah space in consumer products.
47:39
Speaker 2: Would they People were just crazy for the stuff, and
47:40
Speaker 2: as we mentioned earlier, it does look really cool. And
47:43
Speaker 2: as we mentioned earlier, it was used to treat the
47:45
Speaker 2: felt in hats, and that's where the term matt as
47:48
Speaker 2: a hatter came from. But I think mercury thermometers are
47:51
Speaker 2: maybe a little less popular than they used to be,
47:53
Speaker 2: but you can still get them. Yeah, and you know,
47:56
Speaker 2: kids would break them open and watch the little ball
47:58
Speaker 2: roll around. And I and a few years ago went
48:01
Speaker 2: to Spain and went to the institute of this really
48:04
Speaker 2: cool artist, Joan Miro and he made a fountain, uh,
48:08
Speaker 2: filled entirely with mercury, and it's encased in a glass
48:11
Speaker 2: thing because it's you know, but it wasn't for a
48:13
Speaker 2: really long time. You can just walk right up to
48:15
Speaker 2: it and put your finger in it. And yeah. But anyway,
48:17
Speaker 2: one of the coolest things I've ever seen. But yeah,
48:19
Speaker 2: there's an interesting parallel between the radium craze and the
48:22
Speaker 2: mercury craze. I love mercury.
48:26
Speaker 1: Uh, it's just it's so interesting, it looks so cool. Yeah,
48:30
Speaker 1: don't touch it, don't play with it, don't break the thermometer.
48:34
Speaker 1: What the thermometers that are really popular now And I
48:38
Speaker 1: see this anytime I'm in Japan. We actually picked one up.
48:42
Speaker 2: I think. Yeah, they're in the States too. It's the
48:44
Speaker 2: thermometer that looks like a little gun. Way yeah, yeah,
48:48
Speaker 2: it looks like a little gun with a flat abbreviated
48:51
Speaker 2: so fun, and so you put it on someone and
48:54
Speaker 2: then you just pull the trigger and it goes yeah.
48:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's one example that Max is holding up here.
49:02
Speaker 1: There are other ones that can do it from further away,
49:05
Speaker 1: which is uncomfortable because I've been in situations where I'm
49:09
Speaker 1: walking in and the authority figure just holds the gut
49:14
Speaker 1: up and shoots it at you to check your temperature
49:16
Speaker 1: in the days of COVID. Anyway, story for another day, Folks,
49:21
Speaker 1: we are back in the saddle.
49:22
Speaker 2: Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
49:25
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our super producer, Max the Watchface Williams.
49:30
Speaker 1: Big thanks to our composer Alex Williams who created this
49:35
Speaker 1: slap and bop you're hearing right now.
49:38
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to mega, mega wonderful addition to the Ridiculous
49:42
Speaker 2: History research team, Dylan Clark. This is what's such a
49:46
Speaker 2: wonderful first entry for our buddy Dylan to the show.
49:50
Speaker 2: We're happy to have him. And huge thanks to Chris
49:52
Speaker 2: Frasciotas and Eves Jeff Cuts, both here in spirit big,
49:56
Speaker 2: big thanks to friend of the show, Lorden vogelbaumb big
49:59
Speaker 2: thanks rude dudes of ridiculous crime. If you dig us,
50:03
Speaker 2: you'll love them. Reluctant, grudging, faint praise, very scant, performative,
50:12
Speaker 2: insincere attempt at things. Wo to Jonathan, strictly Deka the
50:16
Speaker 2: quiztarn oh Man, you really late it on. I'm with you,
50:19
Speaker 2: uh no, I'll all jokes aside. We really love Jonathan
50:23
Speaker 2: and huge thanks to you, Bam. This is a lot
50:24
Speaker 2: of fun and you know, disturbing fun, but also educational
50:27
Speaker 2: and of course ridiculous. Let's go get some energy drinks.
50:31
Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
50:40
Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
50:44
Speaker 2: to your favorite shows.