Naive customers could buy creams, powders and elixirs containing radioactive substances – and the advertisements promised health, beauty and not quite eternal life.
In Germany, the Berlin Auergesellschaft produced Doramad toothpaste, which contained some radioactive thorium, from the 1920s onwards. According to the company, the substance ensures radiantly white teeth and healthy gums and keeps teeth strong for life.
American loses jaw
However, over time it turned out that ingesting radioactive products was a bad idea. One of the worst examples comes from the United States.
After three years of using the painkiller Radithor, which contained radium, American industrialist Eben Byers became seriously ill.
First he lost his hair, then his teeth, then his entire jaw. He finally died in 1932.
However, these types of stories were obscured by the advertising frenzy for radioactive miracle cures. For Auergesellschaft, sales of the toothpaste in the 1930s exceeded all expectations, which is why the Germans went looking for thorium in France in 1944.
The enthusiasm for radioactive products only disappeared after the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
2023-09-18 14:45:26
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