The Miracle Cure

that life saving medication was discovered by accident. A little mold in doctor Alexander Fleming's petri dish changed the whole world for the better. But some medical inventions are well not so for tuitous and back in nineteen thirty two, a New England socialite named Ebenezer Buyers learned that the hard way. Ebenezer or Eben for short, was born in eighteen eighty, the son of a fabulously wealthy steel manufacturer. As such, he grew up with a particularly shiny silver

spoon in his mouth. He studied at the best schools, He wore the best clothes and attended the best social events. When he graduated from college in the early nineteen hundreds, he had no reason to try and find a job. Instead, he spent his days playing Richmond's favorite sport, golf, and he was really good. In nineteen oh six, he won first place at the US Amateur Golf Championship. He might have wanted to go pro, but as he got older,

he landed right where he'd been destined since birth. His father made him the chairman of the Buyer's Steel company. Things were going quite well for Eban until nineteen twenty seven. That November, he was riding the train home from a collegiate football game, Yale versus Harvard. Of course, he'd just a first class ticket and was snoozing away on a

comfortable bed. Then the trains skidded to a sudden halt, and Eben flew off the mattress and landed on the floor, and in the process he hid his shoulder hard enough that it was still bothering him a few days later. In fact, it hurt so badly that he couldn't play golf, which for Eben was a big problem. He went to his doctor, who prescribed him with a new miracle drug that would supposedly zap the pain right away. It was called Ratathor. It came in a small, dark colored bottle,

and Eben was prescribed one spoonful a day. He did as he was told, and just like the doctor promised, it made him feel incredible. The pain in his arm went away. He had more energy, he felt more alive, happier. He liked it so much that he started taking more than the recommended dose, sometimes drinking an entire bottle of Ratathor in one day. Over the next four years, Eben ingested around fourteen hundred bottles of Ratathor. And then one day in nineteen thirty one, his jaw fell off his face.

And I mean that literally, the bones and muscles holding his jaw together disintegrated and it just snapped off. Obviously, Eban was terrified. He figured this new development must have been related to the mysterious liquid that he'd been chugging for the last four years, and he was right. Around the same time, the Federal Trade Commission started investigating Radathor as a potentially life threatening drug. They sent an attorney

to Evans's house to get a statement from him. Later on, that attorney wrote the following about meeting Evan San's jaw in a fancy Long Island mansion a more gruesome experience, he wrote, in a more gorgeous setting, would be hard to imagine Evans's whole upper jaw accepting two front teeth, and most of his lower jaw had been removed. All the remaining tissue of his body was disintegrating, and holes were actually forming in his skull. Now I know what

you're asking. What kind of medication causes human bodies to break apart at the seams? Well, ratathor contained exactly two ingredients, water and radium. And if you're not familiar, radium is an extremely dangerous radioactive element that was commonly used in everything from paint to medications before people realized that it was deadly. By the time Eben died of radium induced cancer in nineteen thirty two, he had ingested so much

of the element that even his breath was radioactive. They had to bury him in a coffin lined with lead so that his remains wouldn't contaminate the surrounding dirt. It's a bleak story, I know, but there was one very small upside for Eben. Buyer's radium really does have pain relieving properties. So even as his bones slowly fell apart, Eben couldn't feel a thing. And that, my friends, is curious. If you use TikTok, or really any social media, you've

almost certainly heard the phrase skincare routine. You might have seen videos of influencers rubbing layer upon layer of products on their faces, talking about how much they love a certain serum or a scrub. These days, the beauty industry is a five hundred and thirty two billion dollar a year business. From mascara that's supposed to make your eyelashes grow, to lotion that claims to reverse the signs of aging. Beauty products make impossible promises, and the people who peddle

them make incredible profits. It's been that way throughout history too. Take for example, the story of Madame Anna Rupert, a pioneering beauty guru who made a killing then almost got killed. Anna was born in Missouri in eighteen sixty four. Now, according to legend, she grew up with a birthmark on her face. No big deal, right, Well, to Anna, it was as a teenager she sought to have the birthmark removed.

The exact details have been lost to history, but she either visited a Saint Louis druggist, which is like a pharmacist today, or a vaguely described old woman and I use big air quotes for that, whichever one is the truth. They apparently provided Anna with a curative formula that made the mark disappear. Anna was so happy with the results that she wanted to share this magical formula with others. She created her own spin on the product and tried

to sell it. She even started calling herself a dermatologist, which was a problem because she had zero medical training. In eighteen eighty three, she married a man named Henry Rupert. They moved to New York, where Anna's skincare business really took off. Her most popular offering was Madame Rupert's Face Bleach. If that title makes you a little uncomfortable, I don't

blame you. Anna didn't specifically market her products to an African American audience, but the idea of skin bleaching definitely carries racist undertones. This was a time in history when being pale was the beauty standard, and Madame Rupert's face Bleach promised to erase tns, freckles, ezema, blackheads, beauty marks,

and so much more Now. I can't say if this product actually worked, I'd put my money on no though, But people bought it anyway, which allowed Anna to establish herself as a major player in the nineteenth century American beauty business. She wrote a beauty column in a magazine called Hearth and Home and published a book titled How to Be Beautiful. She later moved to London and captured

her share of the British market as well. But beauty is pain, after all, Anna's life wasn't all sunshine and rainbows. In the late eighteen eighties, she and her husband got a divorce, which was a much bigger deal in the nineteenth century than it would be today. Then, in eighteen ninety three, the British Medical Journal published an article that tarnished the name of Madame Rupert forever you see a woman not only as missus Kay had experienced a horrible

reaction to Anna's face bleach. She actually died after us. That's because it contained mercury chloride, which in high amounts could cause mercury poisoning. After this, Anna was effectively blacklisted from the beauty industry. She turned to acting in theater management to make ends meet. And that's why she was working at the Princess Theater in London in November of eighteen ninety four when she received the box of candy

with no letter attached. Clearly it was somewhat suspicious, but Anna figured that the gift was from a secret admirer, so she ate a handful of the candy. The next day, she felt so ill she couldn't perform. It turned out that the candy was laced with carbolic acid. Someone had tried to poison Anna, and although she survived and offered a reward for information, the culprit was never found. Maybe it was a disgruntled customer trying to get back at Anna,

but we'll never know for sure. A few months later, Anna moved back to the United States, where she tried to re enter the beauty industry by becoming a lecturer on dermatology. She gave speeches about skincare serums and aging prevention, and then quite suddenly, she contracted toberculosis and passed away in eighteen ninety six at just thirty two years old. And for critics of her work in the beauty product industry,

there is a small bit of irony there. They're quick to point out that Anna died so young she didn't have time to get a single wrinkle. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.

I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.