<p>Eben M. Byers died early on the
morning of Thursday, March 31,
1932, the victim of a mysterious
syndrome that for 18 months had rav-
aged his body, corroding his skeletal
system until one by one his bones start-
ed to splinter and break. Byers had been
a powerful man, a broad-chested athlete
and sportsman who was an expert trap-
shooter and had been the U.S. Amateur
Golf Champion in 1907 at the age of
27. As chairman of the A. M. Byers Iron
Foundry, he had personiÞed the Roar-
ing Twenties, a millionaire socialite and
tycoon who had clambered into the
upper reaches of New York society. He
continued to lead a life of privilege even
after the stock market crash, main-
taining homes in Pittsburgh, New York,
Rhode Island and South Carolina, as
well as horse-racing stables in New York
and England.
When Byers died, his shriveled body
must have been barely recognizable to
friends who had known him as a robust
athlete and ladiesÕ man. He weighed just
92 pounds. His face, once youthful and
raÛshly handsome, set oÝ by dark, po-
maded hair and deep-set eyes, had been
disÞgured by a series of last-ditch op-
erations that had removed most of his
jaw and part of his skull in a vain at-
tempt to stop the destruction of bone.
His marrow and kidneys had failed,
giving his skin a sallow, ghastly cast.
Although a brain abscess had left him
nearly mute, he remained lucid almost
to the end. He died at 7:30 A.M. at Doc-
torsÕ Hospital in New York City.
News of ByersÕs death and its myster-
ious circumstances reached his former
colleagues on Wall Street almost imme-
diately. Over the next two weeks the
stock of his company, already battered
by the Great Depression, lost one third
of its value. Worried friends and rela-
tives had begun to contact ByersÕs doc-
tors from the day of his death to Þnd
out if he had died of something conta-
gious. By the next afternoon, the author-
ities had begun a criminal poisoning in-
vestigation and were preparing the body
for a forensic autopsy by the chief med-
ical examiner of New York. The New
Yo