Vertus Hardyman's Hat: When Modern Medicine Burns

 In 1927, a “modern cure” for ringworm left a boy’s skull collapsed. He wore a hat for 80 years to hide the truth. 

In a rural Black farming town in Indiana, 1927, a group of schoolchildren were told they’d receive a modern medical treatment for ringworm. It was free, it was fast, and it was promised safe. What followed was one of the most chilling medical betrayals of the 20th century.

This is the true story of Vertus Wellborn Hardiman — a five-year-old boy whose skull was irreparably damaged by radiation and who wore a hat for the next eighty years to hide the evidence.

What looks like progress can sometimes be poison.

 This isn’t folklore. It’s a hospital record. Read the full story and hear the episode now. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Man Who Always Wore Hats
• 0:52 Ringworm in Lyle Station School
• 1:35 X-Ray Treatment Gone Wrong
• 3:28 A Lifetime of Hidden Wounds
• 4:38 Pattern of Medical Harm Across Continents
• 8:16 Vertus Hardyman's Truth Revealed

Transcript

Paul G: 0:02

This is a special edition of Things I Want to Know Voices brought to you by FMS Studios. For more than 80 years he kept his head covered through the planting and harvest seasons in his hometown of Lyle Station, through the summer heat and winter cold, with the church bell marking the week. His hats were straw in summer, wool in winter and a fedora on Sundays. People stopped asking him why. It was simply part of him. He never explained until the day he set aside his hat because underneath was a crater skin pulled tight where bones should have been where it never healed. It wasn't an accident, it wasn't a disease and it was done to him.

Paul G: 0:52

In Lyle Station, indiana, in 1927, in a black farming settlement with deep roots, a school became a clinic. Families traded labor at harvest, the bell marked the days and a one-room school taught every grade under a single roof. That winter a handful of children came home scratching Bald circles showed on small heads. It was ringworm. It was contagious, embarrassing but not lethal. But in a school a nuisance becomes a problem quickly. But in a school, a nuisance becomes a problem quickly. Word spread that a medical team at the county hospital would treat the children at no cost, promised to give up-to-date care that was quick and safe. One boy was five. His case was mild. But at the same time the men in white coats said this was standard, approved and what responsible parents would choose. It sounded like care, like progress, so she signed Across the US and Europe was a new treatment for scalp ringworm.

Paul G: 2:01

Textbooks and conferences praised it. No scalp scraping, no caustic chemicals, no weeks of bandages Removing the infected hair at the follicle and the fungus wouldn't survive. That was the logic. The method came out of the early 1900s dermatology, shaped by French researcher Raymond Savareau and others. Even then the literature cautioned. Dosing must be precise and protective measures matter. Too much exposure burns, scars and damages tissue. Too little doesn't work. Accuracy depended on the operator, the machine, the clock, training and the pressure to move kids through quickly.

Paul G: 2:45

Ten children were called from their desk and taken by the school bus to the county hospital. In a small room the team set up a temporary clinic. An x-ray machine dominated one wall, steel frame, articulated arm, a head that swung into place above each child. They fitted a small cap to position the head and the machine hummed. Settings clicked, the air smelled of ozone. A few children felt heat on their scalps and they were told that meant it was working. When it was over, the class returned to reading and arithmetic and parents were told the infection had been handled, at least for now.

Paul G: 3:18

Days later the first signs appeared, the burning Hair coming out in handfuls. Blisters rose, broke, broke and scabbed. The smell of burnt hair and raw skin followed the children home for days. Most of the group healed over the months. Patches of their hair returned, but one boy did not. His wounds didn't close. His mother went looking for help and the visiting team never came back. The local doctor could dress the burns but not reverse them. Ten children treated, one child not healing, the team gone and the mother alone. Eventually this skin stopped getting worse, but underneath the bone was breaking down. Sections of his skull collapsed and didn't return. His mother tried what she could ointments, careful wrapping, keeping him out of the sun but there was no home remedy for missing bone. She told him to keep his head covered and he did, and that hat became his shield as he grew into adulthood. He worked steady jobs, sat in the same pew every Sunday. People always noticed his hats, they assumed style and they didn't press.

Paul G: 4:39

In their records, though, the 1927 session appears as treatment in the home. It meant aftercare that never arrived. In the journals it was x-ray epilation, a modern public health procedure for schools. Textbooks, textbooks of the day, they all said to remove infected hair at the follicle, you will stop the contagion. Efficient for classrooms, safe in theory, but in the early mid-20th century public health favored mass solutions and this fit that mindset A fast, so-called hygienic approach to stigmatized infections. It was cheaper and logistically cheaper than weeks of treatments or supervised hair removal. They minimized the risks or just didn't understand them, and the benefits were oversold. And the settings chosen were often ones with the least power to say no Immigrant neighborhoods, rural settlements and, repeatedly, black communities. Doctors weren't cartoon villains. Guides of the day framed it as a hygienic, school-based fix for ringworm. Most believed they were delivering modern care and they had the journal articles and conference papers and case counts. That looked like success. But precision requires time, equipment, experience and humility.

Paul G: 6:06

School rooms are not radiological suites. Moving quickly through a row of children with limited protection, imperfect machines and human clocks turns standard into dangerous. The boy's mother kept going. She changed dressings, washed and rewrapped them, bought hats, hid the fear on her face and the boy learned to make himself small in photographs, tipping the brim just low enough at work and at church and at home with the hat, making the world easier to face. And he wasn't alone in carrying something from that room. Other children had permanent scarring, patchy alopecia lumps that needed cutting out. Later they grew up too. They moved, worked, worshipped. But none of them received letters warning of late effects. No more offered screening programs. The file called it treatment, life called it something else. Zoom out and the pattern darkens the school room 10 children, one city, many across continents, tens of thousands.

Paul G: 7:18

From the 1910s to the 1960s, x-ray treatment for ringworm became routine in many countries. It was public health, fashion, fast, cheap, scalable that left a long trail of harm, with thyroid disease, cataracts, tumors, cranial and brain injuries. In New York City, thousands of children were treated. In Israel in the 1950s, north Africa and Middle Eastern Jewish children were subject to mass irradiation. In 1994, a law established compensation and follow-up.

Paul G: 7:51

But here the phone never rang, not once. The same logic repeated speed over caution, logistics over consent, modernity as a shield. Lyle Station wasn't an exception. It was another entry in the log. A black farming town offered a service at school, a one-day intervention delivered by authority. The cost, as usual, was carried by the people with the least leverage to fight it. There was never a day when the missing bone came back.

Paul G: 8:25

No letter ever said we made a mistake to the man who wore a hat and a community that learned to see it as part of him later in life. He agreed to be on camera. He took off the hat and the room went quiet. A cavity in his skull where a child's future could have been. His name was vertus wellborn hardyman. He was five years old when a hospital x-ray machine took a piece of his head. He lived with it for 80 years, every day. It isn't a mystery, it's the record. A 1927 school treatment in a black community, ten children in a line, a medical fashion that promised modernity and delivered a lifetime of harm. The hat didn't hide the truth. It just told you where to look. From planting to harvest, the season kept moving, modern medicine, promising speed. Yet he paid for it forever. Thank you. If you want to complain about it, hey, we can handle that too. Send us an email at paulg, at paulgnewtoncom.