A particularly dangerous radium quack cure from 1920
Channel: Carl Willis
Date: 2020-10-24

A century ago, radium was the most valuable substance on Earth and was in high demand for revolutionary medical uses (particularly, external radiation therapy for cancers).  But quacks also had a field day, selling everything from toothpaste to suppositories having radium as the supposedly active ingredient.  In this video, we take an in-depth look at a type of device called an "emanator" that was designed to charge drinking water with radon and was definitely on the more radioactive side.  Sales pitches compared such water to "liquid sunshine", suggesting that by bringing a powerful source of radiation inside the body, the beneficial effects that normally obtained only on the skin would be delivered in heightened intensity throughout the organism.  While radium quackery has gone the way of the dodo, the cultural appeal of quackery in general has not, and people continue to be drawn to dangerous, unscientific products and ideas--particularly when scientific medicine offers no simple, immediate remedy for an ailment.