DOCTOR Reacts to The Man Who Drank RADIUM | Eben Byers

Hi guys I'm a Doctor working in the UK.
In todays video I react to and breakdown the scary story of Eben Byers, the man who drank radium until his jaw fell off. I explain what radithor is, the harmful effects radium can have on the human body and soo much more from a Doctor's perspective.
We also take a look at the terrifying story of The Radium girls and how radium caused their teeth to fall out, their jaws to become unhinged and their bones to begin to glow.

Now this show may not be for everyone as the scenes we look at today are quite graphic, so please be warned.

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[docoffcall]

RADIOACTIVE DISINTEGRATION must be one of the worst ways to go?
What other "Jaw Dropping" 🙄 diseases or cases would you like to see next, let me know ⬇⬇⬇

[jacobchapman]

There was also radium infused face cream on the market that women were lathering on their faces for a "healthy glow". You can imagine how that turned out.

[Magdalene]

You forgot to mention they are buried in lead coffins and their bones will continue to emit radiation for thousands of years.

[supercute_QT]

This is so crazy to me. Had I not been born a little bit earlier a doctor would deadass prescribe me a radioactive material to treat a headache.

[DarkCenobyte]

Actually the picture of the man without jaw is not Eben Byers, it's a picture from the book "Manual Of Standard Practice Of Plastic And Maxillofacial Surgery" by Ivy, Robert H. ; published in 1943 (page 38)

[D.X.N.S.K]

Pov: you're the first person to fell asleep at a sleepover

[FishyRadioactivity]

The radium girls thing is crazy, not only the people in charge didn’t care, they even would full on say that all of the girls were alive and are doing fine lol

[baotan]

Me after i bite the Doritos while it’s upright

[samuelbonacorsi]

The graves of radium girls were so radioactive, they could be measured above ground.

[roseadamant]

Radithor was an expensive health supplement in its time advertised as being able to treat multiple ailments by its creator, who was a quack that became wealthy from various schemes & would give doctors who prescribed the Radithor a kickback. The creator William Bailey also died of cancer and his remains were found to have high levels of radium years later.

[itrasheditgood]

Fun fact: while the girls were exposed and licking the brush tips, the people in the back handling the stuff, wore full coverage getup because they knew how dangerous the radium actually was. They just didn’t care about their women workers.

[DAoutaouais]

For the summer of 1993, just before moving away to university, I got a job at my local nuclear research facility (this is in rural Canada). Even if your job didn't specifically have to do with handling anything radioactive, or even having a pass to enter the "active area", everyone had to do a 2-day radiation safety course. The "radium girls" were used as one of the cautionary tales we were told. MOST of the site was effectively risk-free, with slightly elevated background radiation, along the lines of the dose you get when flying on an airliner, and airline crews are hardly known as a higher risk group for radiation sickness. The problem was that the heavy-handed use of radiation health and safety warnings left you entirely unsure of what was a legitimate risk, so you tended to discount most of them. For example, microwave ovens had to have a radiation warning sticker on the side. They ARE, in fact, radioactive, in the way they work, but, if in good condition, pose no real health risk to anyone. My job was SO boring that, every morning, in the last 10 minutes before my shift started, I would throw my radiation detection badge into a hamper, labelled "radioactive laundry", just HOPING it would eventually absorb enough trace radiation in order to prompt an investigation into my department - looking for the cause - to shake things up a bit. It never did work, in the end.

[KingOfDepravity]

Those women are heroes, wow, it’s tragic what corporations have allowed into the general public while probably knowing it was volatile.

[floydtheape]

I've seen these photographs before. I'm pretty sure the photo of the guy missing his lower jaw is from a medical journal that documented WW1 injuries, not from drinking radium.

[micahrowe]

I’ve seen the picture of a guy missing his lower jaw used in so many different stories. It’s a Vietnamese guy. Not the guy talked about in this story.

[startastictime]

They were also painting their nails, teeth, eyelids, ect. For when they went out. Their idea of being eye catching and fun to glow in the dark.

[tammyhall]

Knowing their bodies would "glow" over 1000 years must have been completely mind shattering.

[MrTech]

Doctor
There are few cases similar to Radium poisoning, Plutonium, Radium's deadlier cousin. Cases occurred in Aug of 1945 & May of 1946. 1st case involving scientist named Harry Daghlian when he was doing a technique called "tickling tail of the dragon on Demon Core. Harry dropped Tungsten Carbide onto 6.2 Kg core causing criticality (uncontrolled fission reaction), and he received massive dosage of acute radiation. After receiving the dosage, Harry died 25 days late of Acute Radiation Syndrome or Sickness. Second is Louis Slotin in May of 1946, was using Beryllium half spheres over Plutonium core. Louis grasped upper half of Beryllium with a screwdriver to test fission results until screwdriver slipped and both spheres came in contact with Plutonium causing bright light of radiation. With his left hand, Louis jerked sphere off the core and absorbed massive radiation. In 9 days, Louis Slotin died ARS as Harry Daghlian.

[Anon]

"What're you lookin' at, smoothskin?"

[Max-ejoh]

Me when I drink a glass of OJ after brushing my teeth.