Vertus Hardyman's Hat: When Modern Medicine Burns

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 In 1927, a “modern cure” for ringworm left a boy’s skull collapsed. He wore a hat for 80 years to hide the truth. 

In a rural Black farming town in Indiana, 1927, a group of schoolchildren were told they’d receive a modern medical treatment for ringworm. It was free, it was fast, and it was promised safe. What followed was one of the most chilling medical betrayals of the 20th century.

This is the true story of Vertus Wellborn Hardiman — a five-year-old boy whose skull was irreparably damaged by radiation and who wore a hat for the next eighty years to hide the evidence.

What looks like progress can sometimes be poison.

 This isn’t folklore. It’s a hospital record. Read the full story and hear the episode now. 

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Episode Transcript

Paul G (00:02):
This is a special edition of Things I Want to Know
Voices brought to you by FMSStudios.
For more than 80 years he kepthis head covered through the
planting and harvest seasons inhis hometown of Lyle Station,
through the summer heat andwinter cold, with the church
bell marking the week.

(00:22):
His hats were straw in summer,wool in winter and a fedora on
Sundays.
People stopped asking him why.
It was simply part of him.
He never explained until theday he set aside his hat because
underneath was a crater skinpulled tight where bones should
have been where it never healed.

(00:44):
It wasn't an accident, itwasn't a disease and it was done
to him.
In Lyle Station, indiana, in1927, in a black farming
settlement with deep roots, aschool became a clinic.
Families traded labor atharvest, the bell marked the

(01:05):
days and a one-room schooltaught every grade under a
single roof.
That winter a handful ofchildren came home scratching
Bald circles showed on smallheads.
It was ringworm.
It was contagious, embarrassingbut not lethal.
But in a school a nuisancebecomes a problem quickly.
But in a school, a nuisancebecomes a problem quickly.
Word spread that a medical teamat the county hospital would

(01:28):
treat the children at no cost,promised to give up-to-date care
that was quick and safe.
One boy was five.
His case was mild.
But at the same time the men inwhite coats said this was

(01:50):
standard, approved and whatresponsible parents would choose
.
It sounded like care, likeprogress, so she signed Across
the US and Europe was a newtreatment for scalp ringworm.
Textbooks and conferencespraised it.
No scalp scraping, no causticchemicals, no weeks of bandages
Removing the infected hair atthe follicle and the fungus

(02:12):
wouldn't survive.
That was the logic.
The method came out of theearly 1900s dermatology, shaped
by French researcher RaymondSavareau and others.
Even then the literaturecautioned.
Dosing must be precise andprotective measures matter.
Too much exposure burns, scarsand damages tissue.

(02:34):
Too little doesn't work.
Accuracy depended on theoperator, the machine, the clock
, training and the pressure tomove kids through quickly.
Ten children were called fromtheir desk and taken by the
school bus to the countyhospital.
In a small room the team set upa temporary clinic.
An x-ray machine dominated onewall, steel frame, articulated

(02:57):
arm, a head that swung intoplace above each child.
They fitted a small cap toposition the head and the
machine hummed.
Settings clicked, the airsmelled of ozone.
A few children felt heat ontheir scalps and they were told
that meant it was working.
When it was over, the classreturned to reading and
arithmetic and parents were toldthe infection had been handled,

(03:17):
at least for now.
Days later the first signsappeared, the burning Hair
coming out in handfuls.
Blisters rose, broke, broke andscabbed.
The smell of burnt hair and rawskin followed the children home
for days.
Most of the group healed overthe months.
Patches of their hair returned,but one boy did not.
His wounds didn't close.

(03:39):
His mother went looking forhelp and the visiting team never
came back.
The local doctor could dressthe burns but not reverse them.
Ten children treated, one childnot healing, the team gone and
the mother alone.
Eventually this skin stoppedgetting worse, but underneath

(04:00):
the bone was breaking down.
Sections of his skull collapsedand didn't return.
His mother tried what she couldointments, careful wrapping,
keeping him out of the sun butthere was no home remedy for
missing bone.
She told him to keep his headcovered and he did, and that hat

(04:21):
became his shield as he grewinto adulthood.
He worked steady jobs, sat inthe same pew every Sunday.
People always noticed his hats,they assumed style and they
didn't press.
In their records, though, the1927 session appears as

(04:42):
treatment in the home.
It meant aftercare that neverarrived.
In the journals it was x-rayepilation, a modern public
health procedure for schools.
Textbooks, textbooks of the day, they all said to remove
infected hair at the follicle,you will stop the contagion.
Efficient for classrooms, safein theory, but in the early

(05:04):
mid-20th century public healthfavored mass solutions and this
fit that mindset A fast,so-called hygienic approach to
stigmatized infections.
It was cheaper and logisticallycheaper than weeks of
treatments or supervised hairremoval.
They minimized the risks orjust didn't understand them, and

(05:26):
the benefits were oversold.
And the settings chosen wereoften ones with the least power
to say no Immigrantneighborhoods, rural settlements
and, repeatedly, blackcommunities.
Doctors weren't cartoonvillains.
Guides of the day framed it asa hygienic, school-based fix for
ringworm.
Most believed they weredelivering modern care and they

(05:50):
had the journal articles andconference papers and case
counts.
That looked like success.
But precision requires time,equipment, experience and
humility.
School rooms are notradiological suites.
Moving quickly through a row ofchildren with limited

(06:11):
protection, imperfect machinesand human clocks turns standard
into dangerous.
The boy's mother kept going.
She changed dressings, washedand rewrapped them, bought hats,
hid the fear on her face andthe boy learned to make himself
small in photographs, tippingthe brim just low enough at work

(06:33):
and at church and at home withthe hat, making the world easier
to face.
And he wasn't alone in carryingsomething from that room.
Other children had permanentscarring, patchy alopecia lumps
that needed cutting out.
Later they grew up too.

(06:54):
They moved, worked, worshipped.
But none of them receivedletters warning of late effects.
No more offered screeningprograms.
The file called it treatment,life called it something else.
Zoom out and the patterndarkens the school room 10
children, one city, many acrosscontinents, tens of thousands.

(07:18):
From the 1910s to the 1960s,x-ray treatment for ringworm
became routine in many countries.
It was public health, fashion,fast, cheap, scalable that left
a long trail of harm, withthyroid disease, cataracts,
tumors, cranial and braininjuries.
In New York City, thousands ofchildren were treated.

(07:38):
In Israel in the 1950s, northAfrica and Middle Eastern Jewish
children were subject to massirradiation.
In 1994, a law establishedcompensation and follow-up.
But here the phone never rang,not once.
The same logic repeated speedover caution, logistics over

(08:00):
consent, modernity as a shield.
Lyle Station wasn't anexception.
It was another entry in the log.
A black farming town offered aservice at school, a one-day
intervention delivered byauthority.
The cost, as usual, was carriedby the people with the least
leverage to fight it.
There was never a day when themissing bone came back.

(08:25):
No letter ever said we made amistake to the man who wore a
hat and a community that learnedto see it as part of him later
in life.
He agreed to be on camera.
He took off the hat and theroom went quiet.
A cavity in his skull where achild's future could have been.

(08:45):
His name was vertus wellbornhardyman.
He was five years old when ahospital x-ray machine took a
piece of his head.
He lived with it for 80 years,every day.
It isn't a mystery, it's therecord.
A 1927 school treatment in ablack community, ten children in

(09:06):
a line, a medical fashion thatpromised modernity and delivered
a lifetime of harm.
The hat didn't hide the truth.
It just told you where to look.
From planting to harvest, theseason kept moving, modern
medicine, promising speed.
Yet he paid for it forever.
Thank you.

(09:53):
If you want to complain aboutit, hey, we can handle that too.
Send us an email at paulg, atpaulgnewtoncom.