Speaker 1: John Graham's bed was magnificent, and for the price of
Speaker 1: fifty pounds, curious married couples could spend a night there,
Speaker 1: though it was explicitly stated that no one would be sleeping.
Speaker 1: About one hundred years before P. T. Barnum would refine
Speaker 1: the art of the showman, John was making a name
Speaker 1: for himself with his big bed and even bigger promises.
Speaker 1: John had created the eighteenth century version of a magical, mystical,
Speaker 1: spiritually infused love, hotel and spa in the name of
Speaker 1: health and wellness. And he did it in the heart
Speaker 1: of London and what would look something like a huge
Speaker 1: piece of performance art today. John's looks and bravado had
Speaker 1: gotten him a long way. He was smart, he was arrogant,
Speaker 1: and he described himself not just as a doctor of
Speaker 1: the body, but of the soul. Like many folks of
Speaker 1: his time, John saw the money to be made in
Speaker 1: driving cures. One avenue into this industry that he tried
Speaker 1: was becoming a surgeon, but he never graduated from medical school.
Speaker 1: For some time he took to the American colonies to
Speaker 1: study with the luminaries of the day. It's said that
Speaker 1: in Philadelphia he learned about electricity from one of Benjamin
Speaker 1: Franklin's collaborators, but fled back to London at the outbreak
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution. He continued traveling the continent in
Speaker 1: search of healing remedies and of course, a quick buck.
Speaker 1: Upon his return to London, and with some success and
Speaker 1: followers in tow, he opened up his Temple of Health
Speaker 1: and Hymen on the River Thames in seventeen eighty one.
Speaker 1: Graham's Temple was a brilliant site made of stone and
Speaker 1: soaring columns and air perfumed with spice and flowers. Candelabrus glistened,
Speaker 1: and light beams danced on the mirrors as visitors were
Speaker 1: welcome to walk the halls. There were tall stained glass
Speaker 1: windows in lecture halls and shops to buy bottles of potions.
Speaker 1: A large statue of the Goddess Hyman herself was carved
Speaker 1: in stone, seemingly looking over and out for everyone who
Speaker 1: entered her domain. The centerpiece of John's newly opened temple,
Speaker 1: as you now know, was his enormous canopied nine by
Speaker 1: twelve foot celestial bed. Though he advertised a myriad of
Speaker 1: treatments to the general public, this was the one that
Speaker 1: turned the most heads, and for good reason. It held
Speaker 1: promise for couples who dreamed of conceiving, and was designed
Speaker 1: with the latest in technological advancements. The bed moved with
Speaker 1: the arduous pair, maximizing its angle for conception. It was
Speaker 1: held aloft by forty glass pillars flushed with magnets and
Speaker 1: electrical currents. Movements from the bed queued a set of
Speaker 1: pipe organs that played in rhythm and time of the
Speaker 1: people romping around, a true erotic cacophony. Although we don't
Speaker 1: have any recordings of this, the research promises that these
Speaker 1: sounds were more celestial than one might think. He sold
Speaker 1: the idea of procreation to the general public as a
Speaker 1: patriotic duty. But under that veneer, John was getting away
Speaker 1: with something else. He was talking free about sex, and
Speaker 1: he made an entire spectacle of it, a spectacle in
Speaker 1: which those who had experienced shame around infertility could pay
Speaker 1: good money for the latest technological solution to their woes.
Speaker 1: He was quick to give out health and life advice,
Speaker 1: and people would pay him for that privilege. What John
Speaker 1: had done was tappened to something that Charlatan's had long
Speaker 1: been in the game of They profited on hopes and
Speaker 1: dreams through smoke and mirrors and sly smiles. He was
Speaker 1: handsome and charming and undoubtedly had the appeal to sell
Speaker 1: sex and solutions. He wasn't the first or the last
Speaker 1: person to sweet talk their way into people's wallets with
Speaker 1: extreme promises alongside legitimate medical marvels. The history of medicine
Speaker 1: is likewise filled with bad ideas based on good intentions,
Speaker 1: and of course the opposite existed as well, bad ideas
Speaker 1: with much more selfish intent and harmful outcomes. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: intentions of those in the remedy business were hard to discern,
Speaker 1: especially when they dealt with deeply personal problems, the kind
Speaker 1: that were only whispered about for many. That was a
Speaker 1: world of fear and shame, fertile ground that some of
Speaker 1: the greediest Charlatans thrived off of. I'm Aaron Manke and
Speaker 1: welcome to bedside Manners. John Romulus Brinkley mixed up a
Speaker 1: tonic and remembered his father fondly. His dad had been
Speaker 1: a mountain man and folk healer, conscripted into the Civil
Speaker 1: War as a medic before returning to his beloved North Carolina.
Speaker 1: There he studied with a country doctor, creating a practice
Speaker 1: deeply based in the mountains he loved. Little John had
Speaker 1: always wanted to grow up to be like his dad.
Speaker 1: To become a proper doctor, he was told he had
Speaker 1: to attend medical school. The price tag for such an endeavor, however,
Speaker 1: was way out of the question. He didn't have money,
Speaker 1: but he sure dreamt of it. John grew up, left
Speaker 1: his home and got a job as a telegraph operator.
Speaker 1: This seemed like the best option for him at the time,
Speaker 1: and he was good at it. He made a soaring
Speaker 1: forty five dollars per month, but still he felt dissatisfied.
Speaker 1: One day he was called home. John's aunt, the last
Speaker 1: of the people who had raised him, was dying, and
Speaker 1: he would be the one to put her into the
Speaker 1: family cemetery. Standing at her grave side, he was taken
Speaker 1: with a pretty blonde who he had known earlier in life.
Speaker 1: Their courtship began, and he and Sallie Wilke married about
Speaker 1: a month later, in January of nineteen oh seven. He
Speaker 1: and Salie's marriage would prove to be a tumultuous one,
Speaker 1: but she found it within herself to stick with him,
Speaker 1: at least for a little while. This is how she
Speaker 1: found herself as John's assistant for his traveling medicine show,
Speaker 1: moving from town to town and hawking various nostrums and cures,
Speaker 1: charming local residence with promises and answers. He was witty
Speaker 1: and entertaining to boots, performing songs and skits that extolled
Speaker 1: the virtues of everything he had to sell. The machine
Speaker 1: that was the itinerant medicine show in which John had
Speaker 1: gotten himself wrapped up in was reaching its peak popularity
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century. These shows sold songs and promises,
Speaker 1: all wrapped up in spectacle and canvas as their wagons
Speaker 1: rolled through town. Performers and salespeople sold patent medicines, typically
Speaker 1: proprietary blended tonics that claimed to cure everything from blindness
Speaker 1: to hair loss, to wrinkles and gout, and just about
Speaker 1: all the other things in between. Now the snake oil
Speaker 1: salesman was the figure who rose to prominence during this
Speaker 1: time and permanently cemented himself in our vocabulary as shorthand
Speaker 1: for a huckster. The snake oil that was sold at
Speaker 1: shows was largely just a riff on a topical healing
Speaker 1: oil that was brought by Chinese immigrants who worked the
Speaker 1: Western railroads. What was actually in the jars that Brinkley
Speaker 1: and his ilk sold, well, that was their secret to
Speaker 1: keep Now, as anyone who's done seasonal or gig works know,
Speaker 1: it's a hard life. He and Sally eventually found themselves
Speaker 1: in Chicago, and he with a steadier paycheck working for
Speaker 1: Western Union, but he hated it. The dreams of practicing
Speaker 1: real medicine had never left him. He would just find
Speaker 1: another way. As medicine became more of a professional endeavor,
Speaker 1: medical schools popped up across the country. However, not all
Speaker 1: of these institutions were created equal. The worst of the
Speaker 1: worst were simply diploma mills, or anyone who could pay
Speaker 1: enough to get a piece of paper could call themselves
Speaker 1: a doctor. In eighteen forty seven, the American Medical Association
Speaker 1: was founded as an answer to all of this. Their
Speaker 1: goal was to legitimize facilities and sniff out the quacks.
Speaker 1: They did their best, but it was often like playing
Speaker 1: whack a mole. By June of nineteen oh eight, John
Speaker 1: submitted an application and had found his way to Bennett
Speaker 1: Colectic Medical College in Chicago. While enrolled there, he did
Speaker 1: double duty as a student and telegraph operator, managing to
Speaker 1: estrange his wife and split from his family in the process.
Speaker 1: He quit school with the year left to go, figuring
Speaker 1: that he had learned enough to get a leg up.
Speaker 1: Or maybe not. You see, he would eventually enroll in
Speaker 1: the eclectic Medical University of Kansas City, an institution which
Speaker 1: the American Medical Association and the licensing boards of forty
Speaker 1: different states refused to recognize because of alleged unethical practices.
Speaker 1: He eventually left there too, and received a diploma from
Speaker 1: the Kansas City College of Medicine, an infamous diploma mill
Speaker 1: It allowed him to register for a medical license in Arkansas,
Speaker 1: which at that time had reciprocity in several other states.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just his brief attendance at medical school
Speaker 1: that would decidedly change the trajectory of John's career. No,
Speaker 1: it was something else. He found himself traveling the Midwest
Speaker 1: during the heyday of the meat packing industry, and sometimes
Speaker 1: inspiration strikes in the most unlikely of places. You see.
Speaker 1: While working his job one day as the resident surgeon
Speaker 1: for the Swift and Company meatpacking plant in Kansas City, Missouri,
Speaker 1: he was watching goats in the last moments of their life,
Speaker 1: they continued to exhibit vim and vigor and enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: their lady penmates. He was regaled with tales of the
Speaker 1: heartiness of these particular goats, and of their ability to
Speaker 1: stay healthy even in the most disgusting of conditions. What if,
Speaker 1: he thought to himself, we humans could glean some of
Speaker 1: this vigor ourselves from these animals, And all of a
Speaker 1: sudden an idea began to crystallize, and without knowing it,
Speaker 1: John's next chapter had begun to right itself. John knew
Speaker 1: an opportunity when he saw one. In nineteen sixteen, he
Speaker 1: had answered an ad in a paper that was calling
Speaker 1: for a town doctor in Milford, Kansas, population two hundred,
Speaker 1: and he hoped that he might even stay there for
Speaker 1: a while. The intervening years had taken John all over,
Speaker 1: working odd jobs and running from debt collectors. He had
Speaker 1: been in the army, although briefly before a nervous breakdown
Speaker 1: earned him a discharge. He had found himself a new
Speaker 1: wife too, though it would later be revealed that he
Speaker 1: had failed to divorce his first. In Tennessee, he had
Speaker 1: spent some time playing doctor and employing his old medicine
Speaker 1: show tricks. Working at what was essentially a proto strip
Speaker 1: mall franchise for men and their venereal diseases, he put
Speaker 1: on a good show, selling supposed cures too sad and
Speaker 1: desperate men. What happened next has been presented in history
Speaker 1: as fact, but it very well could be a legend
Speaker 1: of John's own making. It was recounted in a book
Speaker 1: he later published about his life when he had become
Speaker 1: very rich and somewhat infamous. As the story goes, an
Speaker 1: old farmer walked into his office one day. He told
Speaker 1: John that he was having trouble in the bedroom and
Speaker 1: that his ability to show up to the task had
Speaker 1: been non existent. The farmer said it was unfortunate that
Speaker 1: he didn't have billy goat nuts before laughing at his
Speaker 1: own joke. But John wasn't laughing. He was inspired. The
Speaker 1: goat has a long cross cultural reputation for its frisky ways.
Speaker 1: The animal has been characterized in ancient texts and fables
Speaker 1: as horn and insatiable pan. The half goat half man
Speaker 1: in ancient Greek mythology is a figure that comes to mind,
Speaker 1: so it is one of the world's oldest aphrodisiac recipes
Speaker 1: from an eighth century Buddhist text that called for you
Speaker 1: guessed it, goat testicles. John later said that it was
Speaker 1: the farmer's idea and that he insisted on the surgery.
Speaker 1: However it happened. The farmer came back that night. He
Speaker 1: dropped his pants and climbed onto John's table, and there,
Speaker 1: naked as the day he was born. John sliced open
Speaker 1: his scrotum, inserted pieces of goat testicles, and then stitched
Speaker 1: him back up. The farmer came back two weeks later,
Speaker 1: all healed up and with a check for one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty dollars. According to John's telling, the farmer claim
Speaker 1: that he would have given him more if he could.
Speaker 1: The operation, it seems, was a success, and because whispered
Speaker 1: networks are strong in a small town, more men would
Speaker 1: soon be arriving on his doorstep. He proceeded with another
Speaker 1: operation on a man who desperately wanted a child. When
Speaker 1: he was all healed up, he brought his wife in
Speaker 1: for goat's ovary. They wanted to double down on their efforts,
Speaker 1: it seems, and as the story goes, they had a
Speaker 1: healthy baby boy a year later. Thanks to John Brinkley.
Speaker 1: They aptly named him Billy, even as he continued his
Speaker 1: usual doctoring duties. Word quickly spread of John's brave new innovation.
Speaker 1: As it did his visions of dollars signs began to grow.
Speaker 1: He knew he needed an expert to help further get
Speaker 1: the word out, so he hired an ad man. The
Speaker 1: fellow came down from Kansas City and was immediately sold
Speaker 1: on John's new operation. It was nothing short of finding
Speaker 1: the fountain of youth, he thought, and advised John to
Speaker 1: advertise in newspapers, flyers, and mailers. Accordingly, he applied for
Speaker 1: a feature in the Journal of the American Medical Association
Speaker 1: and was soon met with unequivocal rejection for his practice.
Speaker 1: Medicine's governing body thought that he was bad news, but
Speaker 1: it appears that many people did not. This all might
Speaker 1: seem unbelievable that John was actually helping his patients we
Speaker 1: hear of the success stories, But is also true is
Speaker 1: that John had something else working on his side the
Speaker 1: cultural taboo around talking about sex. The operation, you see,
Speaker 1: was simple. He wasn't fundamentally altering the person's plumbing, but
Speaker 1: rather just inserting some extra biological material under the skin. Those,
Speaker 1: of course, posed a large risk of infection and rejection,
Speaker 1: but in the instances where this happened or bedroom activities
Speaker 1: never improved, the shame was heavy, and the willingness of
Speaker 1: patients to speak on such matters was hard to muster.
Speaker 1: Even so, he began to attract higher profile clients who
Speaker 1: not only showed up at his practice but saying his praises,
Speaker 1: notably the chancellor of the University of Chicago Law School,
Speaker 1: who traveled to Milford to have the operation done and
Speaker 1: was so happy with it that he awarded John an
Speaker 1: honorary Doctor of Science degree. A deluge of interest came
Speaker 1: after that, and the subsequent and nearly immediate opening of
Speaker 1: a new hospital in Milford followed. In September of nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: It was less than a year after the family arrived
Speaker 1: in John and his wife, Minnie, broke ground for the
Speaker 1: Brinkley Jones Hospital and Training School for nurses, notably, as
Speaker 1: the school's vice president, Minnie signed her own diploma. In time,
Speaker 1: the community would be buoyed by his money and his
Speaker 1: newfound fame, as he committed his dollars to public works
Speaker 1: improvement projects all over town. By nineteen twenty four. He
Speaker 1: was well on his way to building an empire. Patients
Speaker 1: had come from across Europe and South America. Some even
Speaker 1: made their way to Milford from South Asia and the
Speaker 1: South Pacific. Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth registered as
Speaker 1: nothing more than a legend in their collective imaginations. They
Speaker 1: now had the real deal, John Romulus Brinkley's glandular therapy.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be long before John's wallet grew thick and
Speaker 1: the American Medical Association began to follow his trail. He
Speaker 1: had gotten their attention. They knew that he wasn't an
Speaker 1: accredited doctor to begin with, tracing his education back to
Speaker 1: diploma mills and incomplete studies. They believe that he was
Speaker 1: blatantly fleecing good folks out of their hard money. Basically,
Speaker 1: they believed that John was once again back to his
Speaker 1: old medicine show tricks, but this time in a gussied upsetting.
Speaker 1: The AMA saw him as dangerous, but that didn't matter.
Speaker 1: John Brinkley's stardom would continue to climb, and if they
Speaker 1: had any hope of catching him at all, it would
Speaker 1: take everything they had to understand the meteoric rise of
Speaker 1: John Brinkley. We first need to understand the culture in
Speaker 1: which he existed. He was able to blend the old
Speaker 1: world with the new and made that specific moment work
Speaker 1: to his advantage. First, the old world, there were a
Speaker 1: lot of mistakes that were made over the thousands of
Speaker 1: years we've been trying to understand the body. Galen, if
Speaker 1: you remember, never operated on a person and believe that
Speaker 1: animals were an adequate substitute. In a way that seems
Speaker 1: not too dissimilar. Physicians and surgeons of John's time believe
Speaker 1: that oregan transplants between animals and humans were a good
Speaker 1: solution to many problems. In the early eighteen nineties, a
Speaker 1: fellow by the name of Charles Edward Brown Cicard experimented
Speaker 1: with glandular therapy by making extracts of dog, guinea pig,
Speaker 1: and monkey testes and injecting them into his own body.
Speaker 1: It was thought that these tissues could enhance the function
Speaker 1: of a human body's corresponding tissues. Is see cultures around
Speaker 1: the world have long prized organ meat for being nutritious.
Speaker 1: It would make sense then that physicians might believe here
Speaker 1: that like supports like we've seen this across the ages
Speaker 1: in regards to sympathetic magic and medicine, and it makes
Speaker 1: sense that this practice edged its way into modernity after
Speaker 1: Charles Edward's experimentation, he claimed rejuvenation like he had never
Speaker 1: experienced before, and this set off a cascade of interest
Speaker 1: in manufacturing youth and promised that science could finally turn
Speaker 1: back the body's clock. Other doctors began to follow suit
Speaker 1: with glandular therapy experiments, which resulted in thousands of men
Speaker 1: claiming to have been reinvigorated by injections or outright implantation.
Speaker 1: That said, there were many naysayers who claimed that these
Speaker 1: treatments provided nothing more than a placebo effect, but that
Speaker 1: didn't stop people from latching on hard to the hope
Speaker 1: that this kind of therapy could work for them. By
Speaker 1: the early nineteen twenties, it was estimated that there were
Speaker 1: over seven hundred practitioners in the United States alone that
Speaker 1: offered some type of glandular treatment. John R. Brinkley was
Speaker 1: just one of these people, and by all accounts, one
Speaker 1: of the most successful. John had a way with people,
Speaker 1: as demonstrated earlier with his success in the Medicine Show.
Speaker 1: Growing up in North Carolina's Hill Country, he was of
Speaker 1: the people. His affability and cunning allowed him to transcend
Speaker 1: the class he was born into in an odd way.
Speaker 1: He began to monetize his charm, but he was still
Speaker 1: being received as the corn fed country doctor, even as
Speaker 1: he began moving into mansions and signing for fancy cars.
Speaker 1: He leaned on this image as he employed teams of
Speaker 1: public relations specialists to plan stories about his procedure in
Speaker 1: publications across the world. His career went global, and he
Speaker 1: took his knife on the road, slicing into the likes
Speaker 1: of movie stars and businessmen, young and old, all who
Speaker 1: wished for a second shot at youth. His appeal was
Speaker 1: almost universal in a culture that so drastically feared aging.
Speaker 1: He took his potential cocktail of legend, curiosity and fear
Speaker 1: and blended it all up with cutting edge technology enter
Speaker 1: the radio. Radio technology was used by other medical personalities
Speaker 1: at the time to sell their services. Think about them
Speaker 1: as earlier versions of doctor Oz or doctor Phil, but
Speaker 1: John Brinkley was particularly good at it. It was his
Speaker 1: voice and the transmission of his message that helped usher
Speaker 1: in the next chapter of his career. John obtained his
Speaker 1: radio license in nineteen twenty three and began broadcasting on KFKB,
Speaker 1: his own private station. It proved to be a potent
Speaker 1: instrument as it carried his message into thousands of homes
Speaker 1: across the Midwest. It was part entertainment, part Collin Show,
Speaker 1: and part gospel. It seemed that there was nothing that
Speaker 1: John couldn't provide. He made it onto the radio, and
Speaker 1: the radio helped make him. His listeners were invited to
Speaker 1: call the Good Doctor about their ailments. On air, John
Speaker 1: would take their messages and stories about what ailed them
Speaker 1: and listen thoughtfully. He would then prescribe his own proprietary antidotes,
Speaker 1: which listeners were then encouraged to purchase through his own
Speaker 1: private pharmacy. It gave those at home the idea too,
Speaker 1: about how they could cure themselves. He was a one
Speaker 1: man web MD before such a thing ever existed, and
Speaker 1: his phone continued to ring off the hook and his
Speaker 1: physical practice boomed. By one estimate, he was making the
Speaker 1: current equivalent of about half a million dollars per week
Speaker 1: from his office there in Milford, Kansas, enough to eke
Speaker 1: out a living fit for a king. The American Medical Association, though,
Speaker 1: was trying their darndest to put an end to what
Speaker 1: they saw as Charlatanism. In the end, forty two people
Speaker 1: would die as a result of his operations, the thousands
Speaker 1: more having gone under his scalpel and stitch. In fact,
Speaker 1: the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association,
Speaker 1: a man named Morris Fishbeine, was particularly keen on making
Speaker 1: sure that John was stripped of his practice and exposed
Speaker 1: for the fraud that he believed him to be, having
Speaker 1: worked for years to mount a case against him. In
Speaker 1: September of nineteen thirty, the Kansas State Medical Board convened
Speaker 1: in Milford to observe an operation by John Brinkley. The
Speaker 1: twelve members of the board squeezed themselves along the walls
Speaker 1: of John's small operating room and nodded greetings to his patients.
Speaker 1: Mister X on the table. In a moment's time, Minny
Speaker 1: Brinkley brought forth a baby goat. With just a few snips,
Speaker 1: he was relieved of his testicles, and in forty five
Speaker 1: minutes time, pieces of them would belong to the lucky
Speaker 1: mister X. Less than two days later, the Kansas State
Speaker 1: Medical Board would unequivocally revoke John's license on the grounds
Speaker 1: of organized Charlatanism. Maurice Fishbeine had decidedly won this battle,
Speaker 1: but he hadn't yet won the war. John refused to
Speaker 1: go quietly. In fact, he got louder. He amped up
Speaker 1: his efforts on the radio waves and eventually ran for
Speaker 1: governor of Kansas. He decided that if he won, he
Speaker 1: would appoint his own medical board. However, John thankfully lost,
Speaker 1: and with it he soon lost his radio license. Not
Speaker 1: only that, but postal inspectors began building a mail fraud
Speaker 1: case against him. So in nineteen thirty three, he decamped
Speaker 1: his entire operation to a small Texan border town named
Speaker 1: Del Rio. From there, he set up a radio station
Speaker 1: named xe R A right next door in Mexico where
Speaker 1: he could legally still broadcast. From there, he continued broadcasting
Speaker 1: right back into the US, spreading his very specific flavor
Speaker 1: of medicinal gospel. Even still, Morris Fishbeine wasn't finished with him.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty eight, he published a two part series
Speaker 1: in the American Medical Association's magazine entitled Modern Medical Charlatans
Speaker 1: that aimed to take John Brinkley and every thing he
Speaker 1: stood for down. Yet John wasn't going down without a fight.
Speaker 1: Armed with a team of the best lawyers, he sued
Speaker 1: Morris for libel, but this proved to be his undoing.
Speaker 1: The trial began on March twenty second of nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: soon after John's world began to crumble. In the trial,
Speaker 1: he was formerly linked to the diploma mills, and it
Speaker 1: became clear that he had no real medical license. The
Speaker 1: lawsuits began to pour in and his practice collapsed. The
Speaker 1: IRS mounted an investigation into tax fraud, and John was
Speaker 1: forced to file for bankruptcy, which shortly preceded the US
Speaker 1: Postal Services investigation into widespread accusations of mail fraud. As
Speaker 1: it was linked to his practice. It was a house
Speaker 1: of cards, and it had all come tumbling down. His
Speaker 1: heart attacks, three in all, came swiftly and fiercely. John
Speaker 1: died of heart failure in nineteen forty two, utterly penniless.
Speaker 1: The supposed healer of so many people had been unable
Speaker 1: to cure himself, and the aftermath of his career is
Speaker 1: a bit see Yes, Maurice Fishbeine was correct that John
Speaker 1: had purchased his degrees, inflated his mythology, and sought to
Speaker 1: exploit the vulnerable to get rich. But it's still believed
Speaker 1: by some that glandular therapies are legitimates and can be helpful.
Speaker 1: In fact, Mayo Clinic rheumatologist doctor Philip S. Hench was
Speaker 1: awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in this area.
Speaker 1: But thankfully those treatments look a bit different now than
Speaker 1: they did back in John Brinkley's time. These days, the
Speaker 1: glandular derivatives are taken in pill form, readily available at
Speaker 1: your local supplement shop. A quick scan will reveal pills
Speaker 1: made from animal proteins that suggest that they can support
Speaker 1: spleens and thiamuses, and testicles and prostates, among other things.
Speaker 1: These pill bottles, like fat screwtop soldiers, can often be
Speaker 1: found stacked up and down the wall of a shop
Speaker 1: promising a cure for this ailments and then some. And
Speaker 1: it makes you wonder how far we've come from the
Speaker 1: days of the Traveling Medicine Show, which was ripe with
Speaker 1: hope and promises, all of which could be yours for
Speaker 1: just a few dollars. The world of medicine is full
Speaker 1: of mysteries and surprises. In historically two has been full
Speaker 1: of smoke and mirrors, but sometimes behind all of that
Speaker 1: something amazing appears. And if you stick around through this
Speaker 1: brief sponsor break, my teammate Robin Miniter, will tell you
Speaker 1: all about one such discovery. To the untrained eye, a
Speaker 1: desert can seem barren, it's hot, it's cold, and it
Speaker 1: can sometimes be hostile. But when Carti's house Springer laid
Speaker 1: eyes on almost thirteen thousand acres of California's Mojave Desert,
Speaker 1: he knew that its potential was no mirage. The last
Speaker 1: of the medicine men, as he liked to call himself,
Speaker 1: saw the making of an oasis at the end of
Speaker 1: the four mile long dirt road, and visions of his
Speaker 1: big fat bank account. He saw visions of palm trees,
Speaker 1: blue swimming pools. He saw a hotel and cottages. He
Speaker 1: imagined phony hot springs materializing, and he saw a remote
Speaker 1: place all his own where he could conduct his business.
Speaker 1: In September of nineteen forty four, he filed for a
Speaker 1: mining permit in order to secure the land known as
Speaker 1: Soda Springs for his own extraction. According to the paperwork,
Speaker 1: but he had other plans. Curtis's first order of business
Speaker 1: was to round up laborers from Los Angeles skid Row
Speaker 1: and put them to work constructing a place he called
Speaker 1: the Zizis Mineral Springs and Health Resort. Zizis would function
Speaker 1: as a retreat where he promised internal, external, and eternal cleanliness,
Speaker 1: all for a price. Of course, he was offering holistic
Speaker 1: and homeopathic cures a variety of proprietary tonics, but as
Speaker 1: to what exactly was in all of them, well, that
Speaker 1: was for him to know and maybe not for guests
Speaker 1: to find out. To this day, Zizix spelled z zy
Speaker 1: z x is still the last place listed alphabetically on
Speaker 1: the American Atlas, an intentional choice, as Curtis wanted it
Speaker 1: to be the last word in health. Like the other
Speaker 1: medicine men of his day, It's hard to tell what's
Speaker 1: fact from fiction and Curtis's life. By nineteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: the tireless American Medical Association published a paper that named
Speaker 1: him as one of the most infamous quacks of the era,
Speaker 1: cutting down any claims that he had any kind of
Speaker 1: degree or any medical school training whatsoever. That didn't stop him, though,
Speaker 1: from having a prolific career over the syndicated radio waves.
Speaker 1: Like his contemporaries, who were also in on the game.
Speaker 1: This gave him ample opportunity to charm his way into
Speaker 1: the home and pockets of anyone who turned the dial.
Speaker 1: Curtis continued to build his proverbial house on a foundation
Speaker 1: of sand, also erecting a chapel in lecture halls, a boulevard,
Speaker 1: and even a man made lake, And for over thirty years,
Speaker 1: those committed to the Gospel of health came lounged and
Speaker 1: drank their concoctions by the pool. They did this happily
Speaker 1: until they didn't. By nineteen sixty nine, the year that
Speaker 1: the Ama Crown Curtis the King of the Quacks, he
Speaker 1: had been arrested for fraud, but not medical fraud. The
Speaker 1: Bureau of Land Management, not exactly a stranger to the
Speaker 1: operation he was running, but surely tired of it, caught
Speaker 1: word that he was attempting to sell parcels of zizziks
Speaker 1: to his generous stoners. The problem was, though, that this
Speaker 1: was in his land to sell, he didn't own it.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, he was convicted of squatting and
Speaker 1: given less than three days to completely evacuate himself and
Speaker 1: the three decades of his life's work. Curtis certainly lied
Speaker 1: a lot about who he was and what his accomplishments were,
Speaker 1: but it seems a lot of the advice he gave
Speaker 1: a sound and doctors still recommend much of it today,
Speaker 1: For example, get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, eat your vegetables,
Speaker 1: have some lean meat, get some sun, don't drink, don't
Speaker 1: do drugs. And as it turns out, there was some
Speaker 1: real wisdom among his smoke and mirrors if you could
Speaker 1: find it. We might never know all the recipes for
Speaker 1: his alleged miracles, but we do know that for the
Speaker 1: most part, they were actually quite harmless. It turns out
Speaker 1: that he was particularly heavy handed with baking soda, an
Speaker 1: ingredient that we still frequently used today in certain in
Speaker 1: ascids like Alca, saltzer, and Yes. While Curtis did prey
Speaker 1: on the rich, selling them mysterious cares for a pretty penny,
Speaker 1: it's also said that no one was ever turned away
Speaker 1: from his resort because of lack of funds. He may
Speaker 1: have been a charlatan, but in certain situations at least
Speaker 1: he was a philanthropic. One Grim and Mild Presents Bedside
Speaker 1: Manners was executive produced by Aaron Manky and narrated by
Speaker 1: Aaron Manky and Robin Miniter. Writing for this season was
Speaker 1: provided by Robin Miniter, with research by Sam Alberty, Taylor Haggerdorn,
Speaker 1: and Robin Miniter. Production assistance was provided by Josh Thayne,
Speaker 1: Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about this show, the Grim and Mild team, and
Speaker 1: all the other podcasts that we make over at grimm
Speaker 1: Mild dot com, and, as always, thanks for listening