WEBVTT - Bedside Manners 7: The Making of a Man 0:00:05.280 --> 0:00:09.040 John Graham's bed was magnificent, and for the price of 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:12.640 fifty pounds, curious married couples could spend a night there, 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.280 though it was explicitly stated that no one would be sleeping. 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.360 About one hundred years before P. T. Barnum would refine 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:21.920 the art of the showman, John was making a name 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.079 for himself with his big bed and even bigger promises. 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.800 John had created the eighteenth century version of a magical, mystical, 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.800 spiritually infused love, hotel and spa in the name of 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.560 health and wellness. And he did it in the heart 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.080 of London and what would look something like a huge 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.879 piece of performance art today. John's looks and bravado had 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.479 gotten him a long way. He was smart, he was arrogant, 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:49.159 and he described himself not just as a doctor of 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.479 the body, but of the soul. Like many folks of 0:00:52.560 --> 0:00:54.840 his time, John saw the money to be made in 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:58.200 driving cures. One avenue into this industry that he tried 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:02.200 was becoming a surgeon, but he never graduated from medical school. 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.040 For some time he took to the American colonies to 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:08.240 study with the luminaries of the day. It's said that 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:11.800 in Philadelphia he learned about electricity from one of Benjamin 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.560 Franklin's collaborators, but fled back to London at the outbreak 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.120 of the American Revolution. He continued traveling the continent in 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.319 search of healing remedies and of course, a quick buck. 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.800 Upon his return to London, and with some success and 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:29.280 followers in tow, he opened up his Temple of Health 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.880 and Hymen on the River Thames in seventeen eighty one. 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.120 Graham's Temple was a brilliant site made of stone and 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:42.000 soaring columns and air perfumed with spice and flowers. Candelabrus glistened, 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.280 and light beams danced on the mirrors as visitors were 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.480 welcome to walk the halls. There were tall stained glass 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:52.040 windows in lecture halls and shops to buy bottles of potions. 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:55.720 A large statue of the Goddess Hyman herself was carved 0:01:55.720 --> 0:02:00.200 in stone, seemingly looking over and out for everyone who 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:03.840 entered her domain. The centerpiece of John's newly opened temple, 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.920 as you now know, was his enormous canopied nine by 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:11.680 twelve foot celestial bed. Though he advertised a myriad of 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:14.240 treatments to the general public, this was the one that 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.480 turned the most heads, and for good reason. It held 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.919 promise for couples who dreamed of conceiving, and was designed 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.680 with the latest in technological advancements. The bed moved with 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.040 the arduous pair, maximizing its angle for conception. It was 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.840 held aloft by forty glass pillars flushed with magnets and 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:36.360 electrical currents. Movements from the bed queued a set of 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:38.960 pipe organs that played in rhythm and time of the 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:43.600 people romping around, a true erotic cacophony. Although we don't 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:46.880 have any recordings of this, the research promises that these 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.520 sounds were more celestial than one might think. He sold 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.480 the idea of procreation to the general public as a 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.519 patriotic duty. But under that veneer, John was getting away 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.200 with something else. He was talking free about sex, and 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.040 he made an entire spectacle of it, a spectacle in 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.760 which those who had experienced shame around infertility could pay 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:11.000 good money for the latest technological solution to their woes. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:13.720 He was quick to give out health and life advice, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:17.040 and people would pay him for that privilege. What John 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.959 had done was tappened to something that Charlatan's had long 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.800 been in the game of They profited on hopes and 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:26.880 dreams through smoke and mirrors and sly smiles. He was 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:30.560 handsome and charming and undoubtedly had the appeal to sell 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.400 sex and solutions. He wasn't the first or the last 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.360 person to sweet talk their way into people's wallets with 0:03:37.480 --> 0:03:42.480 extreme promises alongside legitimate medical marvels. The history of medicine 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.240 is likewise filled with bad ideas based on good intentions, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.520 and of course the opposite existed as well, bad ideas 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:55.200 with much more selfish intent and harmful outcomes. Sometimes the 0:03:55.280 --> 0:03:58.280 intentions of those in the remedy business were hard to discern, 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:02.080 especially when they dealt with deeply personal problems, the kind 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:05.160 that were only whispered about for many. That was a 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.080 world of fear and shame, fertile ground that some of 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:14.400 the greediest Charlatans thrived off of. I'm Aaron Manke and 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:25.560 welcome to bedside Manners. John Romulus Brinkley mixed up a 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.120 tonic and remembered his father fondly. His dad had been 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:32.320 a mountain man and folk healer, conscripted into the Civil 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.080 War as a medic before returning to his beloved North Carolina. 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.600 There he studied with a country doctor, creating a practice 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.080 deeply based in the mountains he loved. Little John had 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:45.039 always wanted to grow up to be like his dad. 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.960 To become a proper doctor, he was told he had 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.840 to attend medical school. The price tag for such an endeavor, however, 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.839 was way out of the question. He didn't have money, 0:04:55.200 --> 0:04:58.440 but he sure dreamt of it. John grew up, left 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.159 his home and got a job as a telegraph operator. 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.679 This seemed like the best option for him at the time, 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.400 and he was good at it. He made a soaring 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:10.640 forty five dollars per month, but still he felt dissatisfied. 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.000 One day he was called home. John's aunt, the last 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:16.320 of the people who had raised him, was dying, and 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:18.080 he would be the one to put her into the 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.599 family cemetery. Standing at her grave side, he was taken 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.240 with a pretty blonde who he had known earlier in life. 0:05:24.480 --> 0:05:28.080 Their courtship began, and he and Sallie Wilke married about 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.159 a month later, in January of nineteen oh seven. He 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.040 and Salie's marriage would prove to be a tumultuous one, 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.000 but she found it within herself to stick with him, 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.159 at least for a little while. This is how she 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.679 found herself as John's assistant for his traveling medicine show, 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:48.599 moving from town to town and hawking various nostrums and cures, 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.880 charming local residence with promises and answers. He was witty 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:57.080 and entertaining to boots, performing songs and skits that extolled 0:05:57.080 --> 0:06:00.680 the virtues of everything he had to sell. The machine 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.880 that was the itinerant medicine show in which John had 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.200 gotten himself wrapped up in was reaching its peak popularity 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.320 in the early twentieth century. These shows sold songs and promises, 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:14.800 all wrapped up in spectacle and canvas as their wagons 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.360 rolled through town. Performers and salespeople sold patent medicines, typically 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.720 proprietary blended tonics that claimed to cure everything from blindness 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:26.520 to hair loss, to wrinkles and gout, and just about 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.520 all the other things in between. Now the snake oil 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.480 salesman was the figure who rose to prominence during this 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.920 time and permanently cemented himself in our vocabulary as shorthand 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.640 for a huckster. The snake oil that was sold at 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.800 shows was largely just a riff on a topical healing 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.640 oil that was brought by Chinese immigrants who worked the 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.360 Western railroads. What was actually in the jars that Brinkley 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.080 and his ilk sold, well, that was their secret to 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.680 keep Now, as anyone who's done seasonal or gig works know, 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.120 it's a hard life. He and Sally eventually found themselves 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.320 in Chicago, and he with a steadier paycheck working for 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.040 Western Union, but he hated it. The dreams of practicing 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:09.000 real medicine had never left him. He would just find 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.880 another way. As medicine became more of a professional endeavor, 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.440 medical schools popped up across the country. However, not all 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.800 of these institutions were created equal. The worst of the 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.120 worst were simply diploma mills, or anyone who could pay 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.720 enough to get a piece of paper could call themselves 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.680 a doctor. In eighteen forty seven, the American Medical Association 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:32.440 was founded as an answer to all of this. Their 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:35.960 goal was to legitimize facilities and sniff out the quacks. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.480 They did their best, but it was often like playing 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:41.600 whack a mole. By June of nineteen oh eight, John 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.680 submitted an application and had found his way to Bennett 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.640 Colectic Medical College in Chicago. While enrolled there, he did 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:52.680 double duty as a student and telegraph operator, managing to 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.040 estrange his wife and split from his family in the process. 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.080 He quit school with the year left to go, figuring 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.480 that he had learned enough to get a leg up. 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.680 Or maybe not. You see, he would eventually enroll in 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:08.760 the eclectic Medical University of Kansas City, an institution which 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.480 the American Medical Association and the licensing boards of forty 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:17.120 different states refused to recognize because of alleged unethical practices. 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.440 He eventually left there too, and received a diploma from 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:24.200 the Kansas City College of Medicine, an infamous diploma mill 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:27.520 It allowed him to register for a medical license in Arkansas, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:31.160 which at that time had reciprocity in several other states. 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.200 But it wasn't just his brief attendance at medical school 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:37.599 that would decidedly change the trajectory of John's career. No, 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.080 it was something else. He found himself traveling the Midwest 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:44.640 during the heyday of the meat packing industry, and sometimes 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:48.640 inspiration strikes in the most unlikely of places. You see. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.520 While working his job one day as the resident surgeon 0:08:51.600 --> 0:08:55.840 for the Swift and Company meatpacking plant in Kansas City, Missouri, 0:08:56.080 --> 0:08:59.000 he was watching goats in the last moments of their life, 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.800 they continued to exhibit vim and vigor and enthusiasm for 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.280 their lady penmates. He was regaled with tales of the 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.480 heartiness of these particular goats, and of their ability to 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.640 stay healthy even in the most disgusting of conditions. What if, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.600 he thought to himself, we humans could glean some of 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.920 this vigor ourselves from these animals, And all of a 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:24.120 sudden an idea began to crystallize, and without knowing it, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:34.800 John's next chapter had begun to right itself. John knew 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:38.040 an opportunity when he saw one. In nineteen sixteen, he 0:09:38.080 --> 0:09:40.360 had answered an ad in a paper that was calling 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:44.200 for a town doctor in Milford, Kansas, population two hundred, 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.360 and he hoped that he might even stay there for 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:49.600 a while. The intervening years had taken John all over, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.160 working odd jobs and running from debt collectors. He had 0:09:53.160 --> 0:09:56.320 been in the army, although briefly before a nervous breakdown 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.959 earned him a discharge. He had found himself a new 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.440 wife too, though it would later be revealed that he 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:04.480 had failed to divorce his first. In Tennessee, he had 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:07.880 spent some time playing doctor and employing his old medicine 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.160 show tricks. Working at what was essentially a proto strip 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.640 mall franchise for men and their venereal diseases, he put 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.720 on a good show, selling supposed cures too sad and 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.080 desperate men. What happened next has been presented in history 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.640 as fact, but it very well could be a legend 0:10:23.640 --> 0:10:26.360 of John's own making. It was recounted in a book 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:28.960 he later published about his life when he had become 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.600 very rich and somewhat infamous. As the story goes, an 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.360 old farmer walked into his office one day. He told 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:38.400 John that he was having trouble in the bedroom and 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:40.800 that his ability to show up to the task had 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.040 been non existent. The farmer said it was unfortunate that 0:10:44.080 --> 0:10:47.200 he didn't have billy goat nuts before laughing at his 0:10:47.200 --> 0:10:51.960 own joke. But John wasn't laughing. He was inspired. The 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.920 goat has a long cross cultural reputation for its frisky ways. 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:59.240 The animal has been characterized in ancient texts and fables 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:03.480 as horn and insatiable pan. The half goat half man 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.560 in ancient Greek mythology is a figure that comes to mind, 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.600 so it is one of the world's oldest aphrodisiac recipes 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.680 from an eighth century Buddhist text that called for you 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.280 guessed it, goat testicles. John later said that it was 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.400 the farmer's idea and that he insisted on the surgery. 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:22.640 However it happened. The farmer came back that night. He 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.839 dropped his pants and climbed onto John's table, and there, 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.000 naked as the day he was born. John sliced open 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:33.240 his scrotum, inserted pieces of goat testicles, and then stitched 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.160 him back up. The farmer came back two weeks later, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:38.960 all healed up and with a check for one hundred 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:42.120 and fifty dollars. According to John's telling, the farmer claim 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:44.000 that he would have given him more if he could. 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:48.079 The operation, it seems, was a success, and because whispered 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.200 networks are strong in a small town, more men would 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.520 soon be arriving on his doorstep. He proceeded with another 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.800 operation on a man who desperately wanted a child. When 0:11:57.800 --> 0:11:59.679 he was all healed up, he brought his wife in 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.800 for goat's ovary. They wanted to double down on their efforts, 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.120 it seems, and as the story goes, they had a 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.200 healthy baby boy a year later. Thanks to John Brinkley. 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:12.960 They aptly named him Billy, even as he continued his 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:17.439 usual doctoring duties. Word quickly spread of John's brave new innovation. 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.040 As it did his visions of dollars signs began to grow. 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.040 He knew he needed an expert to help further get 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:27.320 the word out, so he hired an ad man. The 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.440 fellow came down from Kansas City and was immediately sold 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.400 on John's new operation. It was nothing short of finding 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.360 the fountain of youth, he thought, and advised John to 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:41.079 advertise in newspapers, flyers, and mailers. Accordingly, he applied for 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:44.120 a feature in the Journal of the American Medical Association 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:47.880 and was soon met with unequivocal rejection for his practice. 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:51.000 Medicine's governing body thought that he was bad news, but 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.200 it appears that many people did not. This all might 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:58.120 seem unbelievable that John was actually helping his patients we 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:00.839 hear of the success stories, But is also true is 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.520 that John had something else working on his side the 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.480 cultural taboo around talking about sex. The operation, you see, 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.560 was simple. He wasn't fundamentally altering the person's plumbing, but 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:16.320 rather just inserting some extra biological material under the skin. Those, 0:13:16.400 --> 0:13:19.840 of course, posed a large risk of infection and rejection, 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.400 but in the instances where this happened or bedroom activities 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:26.520 never improved, the shame was heavy, and the willingness of 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:29.560 patients to speak on such matters was hard to muster. 0:13:30.080 --> 0:13:33.560 Even so, he began to attract higher profile clients who 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.640 not only showed up at his practice but saying his praises, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.360 notably the chancellor of the University of Chicago Law School, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.439 who traveled to Milford to have the operation done and 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.200 was so happy with it that he awarded John an 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:50.000 honorary Doctor of Science degree. A deluge of interest came 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.680 after that, and the subsequent and nearly immediate opening of 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.280 a new hospital in Milford followed. In September of nineteen eighteen. 0:13:57.600 --> 0:13:59.720 It was less than a year after the family arrived 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.960 in John and his wife, Minnie, broke ground for the 0:14:02.960 --> 0:14:06.880 Brinkley Jones Hospital and Training School for nurses, notably, as 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:10.880 the school's vice president, Minnie signed her own diploma. In time, 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.320 the community would be buoyed by his money and his 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.960 newfound fame, as he committed his dollars to public works 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.760 improvement projects all over town. By nineteen twenty four. He 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.840 was well on his way to building an empire. Patients 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.920 had come from across Europe and South America. Some even 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.120 made their way to Milford from South Asia and the 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:33.000 South Pacific. Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth registered as 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:36.400 nothing more than a legend in their collective imaginations. They 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:41.280 now had the real deal, John Romulus Brinkley's glandular therapy. 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.280 It wouldn't be long before John's wallet grew thick and 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.800 the American Medical Association began to follow his trail. He 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.400 had gotten their attention. They knew that he wasn't an 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:53.680 accredited doctor to begin with, tracing his education back to 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.360 diploma mills and incomplete studies. They believe that he was 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:01.320 blatantly fleecing good folks out of their hard money. Basically, 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:03.680 they believed that John was once again back to his 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:07.480 old medicine show tricks, but this time in a gussied upsetting. 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.160 The AMA saw him as dangerous, but that didn't matter. 0:15:11.640 --> 0:15:15.200 John Brinkley's stardom would continue to climb, and if they 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.720 had any hope of catching him at all, it would 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:27.520 take everything they had to understand the meteoric rise of 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.320 John Brinkley. We first need to understand the culture in 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.280 which he existed. He was able to blend the old 0:15:33.320 --> 0:15:36.880 world with the new and made that specific moment work 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.800 to his advantage. First, the old world, there were a 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:42.920 lot of mistakes that were made over the thousands of 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.880 years we've been trying to understand the body. Galen, if 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:49.080 you remember, never operated on a person and believe that 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.240 animals were an adequate substitute. In a way that seems 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.760 not too dissimilar. Physicians and surgeons of John's time believe 0:15:55.840 --> 0:15:59.360 that oregan transplants between animals and humans were a good 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:02.920 solution to many problems. In the early eighteen nineties, a 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.600 fellow by the name of Charles Edward Brown Cicard experimented 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.640 with glandular therapy by making extracts of dog, guinea pig, 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:14.360 and monkey testes and injecting them into his own body. 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.200 It was thought that these tissues could enhance the function 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:20.760 of a human body's corresponding tissues. Is see cultures around 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.200 the world have long prized organ meat for being nutritious. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:27.240 It would make sense then that physicians might believe here 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:30.600 that like supports like we've seen this across the ages 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.880 in regards to sympathetic magic and medicine, and it makes 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:37.520 sense that this practice edged its way into modernity after 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:41.520 Charles Edward's experimentation, he claimed rejuvenation like he had never 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.080 experienced before, and this set off a cascade of interest 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:49.200 in manufacturing youth and promised that science could finally turn 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.360 back the body's clock. Other doctors began to follow suit 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.960 with glandular therapy experiments, which resulted in thousands of men 0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:00.840 claiming to have been reinvigorated by injections or outright implantation. 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.120 That said, there were many naysayers who claimed that these 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.720 treatments provided nothing more than a placebo effect, but that 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.440 didn't stop people from latching on hard to the hope 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.920 that this kind of therapy could work for them. By 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:15.280 the early nineteen twenties, it was estimated that there were 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.639 over seven hundred practitioners in the United States alone that 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.240 offered some type of glandular treatment. John R. Brinkley was 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.160 just one of these people, and by all accounts, one 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.840 of the most successful. John had a way with people, 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.200 as demonstrated earlier with his success in the Medicine Show. 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:34.600 Growing up in North Carolina's Hill Country, he was of 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.600 the people. His affability and cunning allowed him to transcend 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.080 the class he was born into in an odd way. 0:17:41.119 --> 0:17:44.160 He began to monetize his charm, but he was still 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:47.760 being received as the corn fed country doctor, even as 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:51.159 he began moving into mansions and signing for fancy cars. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.040 He leaned on this image as he employed teams of 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:58.359 public relations specialists to plan stories about his procedure in 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.960 publications across the world. His career went global, and he 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:04.760 took his knife on the road, slicing into the likes 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.480 of movie stars and businessmen, young and old, all who 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.639 wished for a second shot at youth. His appeal was 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:15.479 almost universal in a culture that so drastically feared aging. 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:19.080 He took his potential cocktail of legend, curiosity and fear 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.920 and blended it all up with cutting edge technology enter 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:27.480 the radio. Radio technology was used by other medical personalities 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.280 at the time to sell their services. Think about them 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:33.480 as earlier versions of doctor Oz or doctor Phil, but 0:18:33.600 --> 0:18:36.399 John Brinkley was particularly good at it. It was his 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:39.960 voice and the transmission of his message that helped usher 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.960 in the next chapter of his career. John obtained his 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:47.600 radio license in nineteen twenty three and began broadcasting on KFKB, 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.879 his own private station. It proved to be a potent 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:53.919 instrument as it carried his message into thousands of homes 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:57.760 across the Midwest. It was part entertainment, part Collin Show, 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:00.520 and part gospel. It seemed that there was nothing that 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:03.840 John couldn't provide. He made it onto the radio, and 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.159 the radio helped make him. His listeners were invited to 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.600 call the Good Doctor about their ailments. On air, John 0:19:10.640 --> 0:19:13.720 would take their messages and stories about what ailed them 0:19:13.800 --> 0:19:18.560 and listen thoughtfully. He would then prescribe his own proprietary antidotes, 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:21.440 which listeners were then encouraged to purchase through his own 0:19:21.520 --> 0:19:24.800 private pharmacy. It gave those at home the idea too, 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.440 about how they could cure themselves. He was a one 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:31.280 man web MD before such a thing ever existed, and 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.040 his phone continued to ring off the hook and his 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:37.720 physical practice boomed. By one estimate, he was making the 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.960 current equivalent of about half a million dollars per week 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:43.800 from his office there in Milford, Kansas, enough to eke 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.080 out a living fit for a king. The American Medical Association, though, 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:50.280 was trying their darndest to put an end to what 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.600 they saw as Charlatanism. In the end, forty two people 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.639 would die as a result of his operations, the thousands 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.720 more having gone under his scalpel and stitch. In fact, 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:02.560 the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.920 a man named Morris Fishbeine, was particularly keen on making 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:08.840 sure that John was stripped of his practice and exposed 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:11.000 for the fraud that he believed him to be, having 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.840 worked for years to mount a case against him. In 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.360 September of nineteen thirty, the Kansas State Medical Board convened 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.840 in Milford to observe an operation by John Brinkley. The 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.959 twelve members of the board squeezed themselves along the walls 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:27.880 of John's small operating room and nodded greetings to his patients. 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:30.920 Mister X on the table. In a moment's time, Minny 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.560 Brinkley brought forth a baby goat. With just a few snips, 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:37.440 he was relieved of his testicles, and in forty five 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.320 minutes time, pieces of them would belong to the lucky 0:20:40.440 --> 0:20:43.680 mister X. Less than two days later, the Kansas State 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:47.320 Medical Board would unequivocally revoke John's license on the grounds 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:51.959 of organized Charlatanism. Maurice Fishbeine had decidedly won this battle, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:21:03.679 but he hadn't yet won the war. John refused to 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:07.119 go quietly. In fact, he got louder. He amped up 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:09.840 his efforts on the radio waves and eventually ran for 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.960 governor of Kansas. He decided that if he won, he 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:16.720 would appoint his own medical board. However, John thankfully lost, 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.960 and with it he soon lost his radio license. Not 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.080 only that, but postal inspectors began building a mail fraud 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:26.359 case against him. So in nineteen thirty three, he decamped 0:21:26.359 --> 0:21:29.640 his entire operation to a small Texan border town named 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.560 Del Rio. From there, he set up a radio station 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.520 named xe R A right next door in Mexico where 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:40.640 he could legally still broadcast. From there, he continued broadcasting 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.640 right back into the US, spreading his very specific flavor 0:21:44.720 --> 0:21:49.720 of medicinal gospel. Even still, Morris Fishbeine wasn't finished with him. 0:21:49.840 --> 0:21:52.399 In nineteen thirty eight, he published a two part series 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:57.400 in the American Medical Association's magazine entitled Modern Medical Charlatans 0:21:57.680 --> 0:22:00.320 that aimed to take John Brinkley and every thing he 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.680 stood for down. Yet John wasn't going down without a fight. 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.439 Armed with a team of the best lawyers, he sued 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:09.560 Morris for libel, but this proved to be his undoing. 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:12.880 The trial began on March twenty second of nineteen thirty nine, 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.560 soon after John's world began to crumble. In the trial, 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.280 he was formerly linked to the diploma mills, and it 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.159 became clear that he had no real medical license. The 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.840 lawsuits began to pour in and his practice collapsed. The 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.520 IRS mounted an investigation into tax fraud, and John was 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:33.359 forced to file for bankruptcy, which shortly preceded the US 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:38.280 Postal Services investigation into widespread accusations of mail fraud. As 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:40.800 it was linked to his practice. It was a house 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:44.280 of cards, and it had all come tumbling down. His 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:48.399 heart attacks, three in all, came swiftly and fiercely. John 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:52.000 died of heart failure in nineteen forty two, utterly penniless. 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.000 The supposed healer of so many people had been unable 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.439 to cure himself, and the aftermath of his career is 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.280 a bit see Yes, Maurice Fishbeine was correct that John 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.280 had purchased his degrees, inflated his mythology, and sought to 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.800 exploit the vulnerable to get rich. But it's still believed 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:14.960 by some that glandular therapies are legitimates and can be helpful. 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.760