Wm. Radam's Microbe Killer

oral · 1887–1913

category:oral

delivery:A jugged and bottled liquid drunk by the glass, sold in numbered strengths (No. 1, No. 2, No. 3) through agents, druggists, and Radam's own shops, with a free glass offered to passers-by at his Broadway store. The liquid was manufactured by burning a sulphur-based compound and passing the fumes through water in a large closed tank until it acquired, in the words of Radam's patent (US 412,664), 'a sour acid taste'; a little wine was added for a light pink tint (Barnett). Patrons were told to keep drinking it until 'the tissues shall be thoroughly soaked with it, and the blood becomes perfectly purified.'

price tier:mass

era:1887–1913

current status:historical

regulatory:withdrawn

SHORT PITCH (AS SOLD)

There is but one disease, caused by microbes, and one cure. Wm. Radam's Microbe Killer destroys the microbes in your body and cures every complaint, from consumption to rheumatism, while remaining pure water permeated with healthful gases, harmless enough for an infant and cheap enough to drink daily.

THE ACTUAL EVIDENCE

The Microbe Killer was dilute acidulated water with no demonstrated therapeutic effect. Radam's own patent describes its 'medicinal' agent as the gases from burning sulphur dissolved in water to a 'sour acid taste'; R.G. Eccles's chemical analysis found water with only minute amounts of hydrochloric and sulphuric acid, and an analysis attributed to the US Department of Agriculture placed the water content at 99.381 percent. The single-microbe theory was already contradicted by the germ science Radam invoked: Pasteur and Koch had shown that different diseases have different causative organisms, not one universal microbe, and a drinkable dilute acid neither sterilizes the blood nor reaches the tissues at a germicidal concentration. The product was sold on testimonials, never on controlled evidence. Federal authorities under the 1912 Sherley Amendment prosecuted its cure-all labelling as false and fraudulent; a seized shipment was condemned by a Minneapolis jury and the confiscated stock (539 boxes and 322 cartons, per Barnett) was destroyed in a pit in St. Paul, the action Barnett dates to December 1913 and the National Library of Medicine to 1914.

PRACTITIONERS

William Radam

INGREDIENTS

Sulphur-fume-acidulated water (dilute mineral acid)

CASES

radam-microbe-killer-1887-1913

CLAIMS

There is but one disease, caused by microbes, and the Microbe Killer cures every illness by destroying the microbes in the body; as Radam put it, all patients are treated with the same medicine just as a gardener treats all weeds alike. refuted
The Microbe Killer cures all diseases (the jugs were lettered 'CURES ALL DISEASES'), from consumption and rheumatism to any complaint a doctor has pronounced incurable, and is safe for everyone, including infants and pregnant women. refuted
The Microbe Killer contains no drugs and is harmless: in Radam's words it 'is pure water, permeated with gases ... in which micro-organisms cannot live and propagate', so it may be drunk freely until the tissues are soaked and the blood purified. refuted

SOURCES

NOTES

Wm. Radam’s Microbe Killer was a cure-all sold from 1887 as the single answer to a single disease. Its theory, set out in Radam’s 1890 book, was that all illness is caused by microbes and that drinking his liquid kills them throughout the body; its pitch was that the same medicine therefore cures every complaint, from consumption to rheumatism, and is at the same time harmless “pure water, permeated with gases.” It is a patent-medicine case rather than a clinic or device: a proprietary bottled liquid, sold cheaply and in great volume through agents and druggists in numbered strengths, carrying a complete theory of disease and a famous trademark of a man clubbing a skeleton.

The price tier is recorded as mass: this was a commodity sold to the general public by the jug, not an elite service, and Radam grew wealthy on volume (seventeen factories by 1890, a Fifth Avenue mansion, and, per Eccles, profits of 6,000 percent). The longevity dimension is the promise that keeping the body free of microbes prevents disease and preserves health, the route to a longer life through a cheap daily drink. None of it was supported. Radam’s own patent shows the curative agent to be sulphur-fume-acidulated water; Eccles’s analysis and a USDA figure of 99.381 percent water confirm it; and the germ theory the product borrowed had in fact established that distinct organisms cause distinct diseases, so no single germicidal water could cure all of them. The withdrawn regulatory status records the end: under the 1912 Sherley Amendment the federal government condemned the Microbe Killer’s cure-all labelling as false and fraudulent and destroyed its seized stock in 1913, the effective end of a business that had outlived its founder by about a decade, with only residual retail stock advertised afterward (as late as 1919).