William Radam and the Microbe Killer: An Account of Classic Medical Quackery from the Heart of Texas
secondary literature · 2004
LINK
SUMMARY
Detailed narrative account of Radam and the Microbe Killer by Daniel R. Barnett in the North Texas Skeptics' newsletter; cited by the Library of Congress Name Authority File record for William Radam (no2017126365) as a biographical source, and itself citing Radam's 1890 book and Young's two standard scholarly histories. Byline, title, and date read from the page (fetched 2026-06-11). Source for: Radam a native of Prussia and former Prussian-army soldier who gardened ~30 acres in Austin for nearly two decades before illness (malaria, then rheumatism and sciatica) and the death of two of his children started his self-cure quest; his first newspaper advertisement (Austin Statesman, August 30, 1887) and trademark (secured December 13, 1887); the Koppel Building (1888); his move by 1890 to New York (office at No. 7 Laight Street, a Fifth Avenue mansion overlooking Central Park) running seventeen factories and three strengths, many jugs reading 'CURES ALL DISEASES'; R.G. Eccles's analysis finding the Microbe Killer 'merely water mixed with miniscule amounts of hydrochloric acid and sulfuric acid'; the patent process (powdered sulphur, sodium nitrate, manganese oxide, sandalwood, potassium chloride, burned, the vapours passed through water, then a little wine added for a light pink tint); the parenthetical USDA analysis placing the water content at 99.381 percent; Eccles calling Radam a 'misguided crank ... out-quacking the worst quacks of this or any other age' realizing 6,000 percent profit; the libel litigation (Radam retaining Robert Ingersoll; a Brooklyn jury awarding Eccles $6,000; a Manhattan jury awarding Radam $500; the Brooklyn award later reversed); Samuel Hopkins Adams's exposure in 'The Great American Fraud'; the Pure Food and Drugs Act (1906) and Sherley Amendment (1912, signed by President Taft); Carl L. Alsberg of the Bureau of Chemistry; the 1913 seizure of a New York-to-Minneapolis shipment (retail value $5,166; production cost estimated $25.82) and the December 1913 destruction of 539 boxes and 322 cartons in a pit in St. Paul; and that Radam 'finally passed away in 1902. His body was returned to Texas and buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.' Quoted strings used in this bundle are logged in research/notes/grounding-radam-microbe-killer-1887-1913.md.
NOTES
Daniel R. Barnett’s 2004 article for the North Texas Skeptics is the fullest connected narrative of the Microbe Killer affair and is cited by the Library of Congress Name Authority File as a source on Radam. It draws on Radam’s 1890 book and on James Harvey Young’s two standard scholarly histories of American patent medicine. The case uses it for the spine of the story: Radam’s Prussian origin and gardening background, the 1887 launch and trademark, the move to New York and the seventeen factories, R.G. Eccles’s chemical analysis and the libel suits between the two men, the regulatory machinery that finally caught the product, and Radam’s death in 1902 with burial at Oakwood Cemetery in Austin. Where its dating of the federal destruction (December 1913) differs from the NLM article’s (July 1914), both are cited and the case does not assert a single date.