In the late 1920s, long before federal regulators cracked down on false health claims, an East Orange company was selling bottled radioactive water as medicine.
The product was called Radithor, and the water really was radioactive. A surviving bottle in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is labeled “Certified Radioactive Water” and says it contained radium and mesothorium in triple-distilled water. Its label identifies Bailey Radium Laboratories at 336 Main St. in East Orange.
William J.A. Bailey guaranteed customers were getting the radioactive material they were promised. Contemporary medical investigators reproduced an offer from Bailey to pay $1,000 to anyone who could prove bottles leaving his operation did not contain the radioactive material he promised…