Eben Byers was born lucky. His father was a wealthy steel magnate, and he attended the most elite schools in the country
Eben Byers was born lucky. His father was a wealthy steel magnate, and he attended the most elite schools in the country . After graduating from Yale, he went on to win the 1906 U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, and his renown as a sportsman only spread from there. Byers then began working as chairman of his father's steel company, growing ever richer and making the rounds in the country's most exclusive social circles. But Byers' charmed life began to slowly fall apart in 1927, when he injured his arm by falling off a train berth and his doctor prescribed him Radithor — a medicine made by dissolving radium in water. At first, the Radithor seemed to work wonders for Byers. He said it made him feel "toned up," and he took as many as three doses per day, while some claimed he liked it so much because it heightened his libido. Byers proceeded to drink more than 1,400 doses of this radioactive water over the course of the next three years — but then his teeth started f...