Wm Radam's 'Microbe Killer' No. 1 (National Museum of American History)

Smithsonian National Museum of American History object record for a ceramic Microbe Killer jug, cited here only for Radam's birth year. Read from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshot of 2025-06-24 (fetched 2026-06-11), which reads verbatim: 'William Radam (1845-1902) was a German gardener and botanist who moved to the United States around 1882, settled in Austin, Tx., and developed a "Microbe Killer" that, he claimed, would cure all diseases.' (The live Smithsonian object page returned an automated-access block to direct fetch routes on the run date, so the archived snapshot is used as the readable record.) The snapshot also lists the record's own references, including Radam's 1890 book and a Boston Globe article of March 3, 1895. The death year (1902) is independently grounded by Barnett (ntskeptics-radam-2004), who gives the Oakwood Cemetery burial; the 1845 birth year is grounded by this Smithsonian record as read from the Wayback snapshot. (Sources differ on Radam's US-arrival and Austin-gardening timeline: this Smithsonian record says he moved to the United States around 1882, while Barnett describes nearly two decades of gardening in Austin before the 1887 launch; the case does not assert a specific arrival year and uses this record only for the birth year.) Used for the practitioner born_year field.