September 5, 2023 • 10 mins
Tales of medical marvels are on offer today, but be careful--things get a bit dangerous.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Medicine is a funny thing. We like to believe that
it's an exact, objective science, but the history of medicine
is full of trial, error and chance. Take penicillin, for example,
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
(00:59):
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,
(01:20):
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
(01:40):
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
(02:03):
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
(02:23):
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.
(02:44):
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
(03:05):
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
(03:27):
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
(03:49):
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
(04:10):
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
(04:30):
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.
(05:05):
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,
(05:28):
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,
(05:51):
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.
(06:14):
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.
(06:35):
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
(06:55):
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
(07:17):
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.
(07:38):
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.
(08:00):
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
(08:24):
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,
(08:47):
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.
(09:08):
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
(09:30):
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.
(09:52):
And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Nke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
Medicine is a funny thing. We like to believe that
it's an exact, objective science, but the history of medicine
is full of trial, error and chance. Take penicillin, for example,
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
(00:59):
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,
(01:20):
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
(01:40):
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
(02:03):
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
(02:23):
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.
(02:44):
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
(03:05):
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
(03:27):
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
(03:49):
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
(04:10):
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
(04:30):
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.
(05:05):
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,
(05:28):
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,
(05:51):
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.
(06:14):
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.
(06:35):
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
(06:55):
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
(07:17):
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.
(07:38):
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.
(08:00):
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
(08:24):
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,
(08:47):
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.
(09:08):
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
(09:30):
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.
(09:52):
And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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