Speaker 1: Pushkin. Milford, Kansas, nineteen seventeen, a forty six year old
Speaker 1: farmer walks into the local drug store and bashfully asks
Speaker 1: the town's young doctor if you can talk to him
Speaker 1: about a rather delicate matter. Although John Romulus Brinkley is
Speaker 1: a newcomer to the rural Kansas town, he's proven himself
Speaker 1: by helping the locals through a recent flu epidemic. Sensing
Speaker 1: the man's embarrassment, the doctor ushers him into a back room.
Speaker 1: The problem is, the man explains, hesitatingly, he's lacking in pep,
Speaker 1: his attires are flat. In short, he can't get it up.
Speaker 1: He and his wife long for a child to complete
Speaker 1: their family. Can The doctor help explains that he's tried
Speaker 1: treating the sexually weak with serums and tinctures and even electricity,
Speaker 1: but nothing has worked. Then, remembering his time working at
Speaker 1: an abattoir, Brinkley jokes, you wouldn't have any trouble if
Speaker 1: you had a pair of those buck glands in you. Well,
Speaker 1: why don't you put him in? Asks the farmer. Brinkley
Speaker 1: will later say that he felt seconded by the idea
Speaker 1: and tried to halt the conversation by explaining the grave
Speaker 1: health risks, but the farmer is desperate to father a
Speaker 1: child and willing to give anything a go I don't
Speaker 1: have a goat, the doctor protests, I do, the farmer replies,
Speaker 1: and so late one night, the farmer, along with his
Speaker 1: billy goat, pays a visit to the doctor's office for
Speaker 1: a testicle transplant. Two weeks later, the farmer makes another
Speaker 1: late night visit to the doctor's office, this time with
Speaker 1: a spring in his step and a check for one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty dollars equivalent to thousands of dollars today.
Speaker 1: He is delighted with his goat gland implants and has
Speaker 1: been telling his friends. Soon more men are making late
Speaker 1: night visits to the Milford drug store. Dr Brinkley needs
Speaker 1: bigger premises and a barn for the goats. Patients will
Speaker 1: pick out the beasts whose testicles they want implanted into
Speaker 1: their own. Men will come from all over America seeking treatment.
Speaker 1: Brinkley travels too, setting up temporary clinics across America and
Speaker 1: even taking his treatments abroad. Newspapers report on the touring
Speaker 1: goat gland doctor, and the man himself discovers that the
Speaker 1: cutting edge technology of radio can bring him even more patients,
Speaker 1: so many he'll have to build a proper road between
Speaker 1: Milford Railway Station and his hospital. A man is as
Speaker 1: old as his glands, and his glands are as old
Speaker 1: as his sex glands, Brinkley tells his patients. So eager
Speaker 1: are they to feel the effects of revitalized sex clans,
Speaker 1: that few stopped to ponder the medical credentials of the
Speaker 1: charming Dr Brinkley. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales. Dr John Romulus Brinkley was a showman, a
Speaker 1: great self publicist, and an unreliable narrator. The story about
Speaker 1: the farmer, for example, comes from Brinkley himself, and not
Speaker 1: everything he said was true, In particular, not everything he
Speaker 1: said about his own medical qualifications. To guide us through
Speaker 1: the fantastical claims of Dr John R. Brinkley and his
Speaker 1: no less fantastical life is doctor Kate Lister, host of
Speaker 1: one of my favorite podcasts, Betwixt the Sheets, the History
Speaker 1: of Sex, scandal and Society. Kate, I am a huge fan.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Cautionary Tales.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much for having me on. I'm
Speaker 2: always happy to talk about goat glands.
Speaker 1: I mean with the crossover between betwixt the Sheets and
Speaker 1: cautionary Tales, is it's not too hard to find?
Speaker 2: No, this has been a long time coming, hasn't it?
Speaker 1: Really? No pun intended, but yes, it really has, it
Speaker 1: really has. I am very, very keen to hear more
Speaker 1: about doctor Brinkley, if you will pardon the pun. His
Speaker 1: story is nuts.
Speaker 2: He was a fucking lunatic, That's who he was.
Speaker 1: So I think we already gathered that, but give us
Speaker 1: the backstory. So before we get into these unusual treatments,
Speaker 1: what was his early life like with was there any
Speaker 1: sign of this interest in goat lands?
Speaker 2: What we know about him is gathered from his own
Speaker 2: testimony and testimony of people he knew him, and various
Speaker 2: historical records. But you've got to take everything with a
Speaker 2: pinch assault when it comes to Brinkley, because he was
Speaker 2: the master of spin. He appears to have been born
Speaker 2: in Carolina only a decade after the Civil War had ended,
Speaker 2: so you sort of have to factor that into it.
Speaker 2: It was the bloodiest conflict America had ever seen, so
Speaker 2: it's a post war world. Everyone's kind of walking around
Speaker 2: like what on earth was that he's born? He grows
Speaker 2: up quite poor. His parents die when he's young, and
Speaker 2: he's raised by and an uncle, and he gets married
Speaker 2: in his twenties. At some point he works in an avatar,
Speaker 2: which is where we think he first saw a goat
Speaker 2: and went, oh, I'll store that away for future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could use that.
Speaker 2: Yes, For some reason, he thought that a goat was
Speaker 2: the most hygienic animal. That's he first read flag that one,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: I have all sorts of thoughts about goats, but hygienic
Speaker 1: is not the one that doesn't leap to mind of it.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's just my own ignorance.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's just our goat prejudice. But anyway, he thought
Speaker 2: that they were fantastic. He gets married to his first wife,
Speaker 2: a woman called Sally Wick, and they go on the
Speaker 2: road as this kind of traveling medicine act together. So
Speaker 2: you've already got the start of this combining of quack
Speaker 2: medicine and showmanship. So they would go to rural towns
Speaker 2: and sort of put on a big show for the
Speaker 2: local folks and then flog them well snake oil really
Speaker 2: just just nonsense and rubbish, but they were pretty good
Speaker 2: at it.
Speaker 1: As a famous economics paper about the history of the
Speaker 1: market for snake oil, and it grew hugely during the
Speaker 1: period we're discussing, so the late eighteen hundreds and then
Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century, huge market, and
Speaker 1: a lot of it involved circuses, So you had to
Speaker 1: get a crowd in order to sell them whatever it
Speaker 1: was that you were selling them, and circus is a
Speaker 1: good way to attract attention.
Speaker 2: It is completely mad. I mean, would you take medical
Speaker 2: advice from a clown at a circus?
Speaker 1: Nothing against clowns, but that wouldn't be my first board
Speaker 1: of call. But I guess when we think about the
Speaker 1: demand for what we might call unproven treatments today being
Speaker 1: that's true. So on the TikTok on YouTube, and again
Speaker 1: it's attention. You've got an influencer, somebody who you're paying
Speaker 1: attention to because they're doing interesting things, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: they're trying to sell you their latest goop or creams
Speaker 1: or pills and not so different.
Speaker 2: But if he'd been around today, I think he would
Speaker 2: have been on TikTok, would Brinkley. But he was traveling
Speaker 2: around towns, he's doing his act, he's selling nonsense, and
Speaker 2: then at some point he tries to settle down in Chicago,
Speaker 2: and he must have had a thought along the way
Speaker 2: of like, I'm not really a doctor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, okay, spoiler, he's not a doctor.
Speaker 2: Something must have occurred to like, I'm treating all these
Speaker 2: people and I'm not a medical person.
Speaker 1: So he had no medical qualification?
Speaker 2: Can do attitude? Tim? Is what he had? He had?
Speaker 1: Did he claim to be a doctor or did he
Speaker 1: have any sort of qualifications at all?
Speaker 2: Not at this point, and the qualifications that he does
Speaker 2: get are best described as gubious. He went to study
Speaker 2: at the Chicago Bennett Medical School. Eclectic medicine was just
Speaker 2: sort of the study of botany, herbal cures and a
Speaker 2: bit of physiotherapy as well, So it's already a little
Speaker 2: bit okay, and it's not an accredited college that he's
Speaker 2: studying at, and he doesn't even manage to finish it
Speaker 2: because he can't pay the tuition fees. At this point,
Speaker 2: he seems to be working a lot of different jobs
Speaker 2: to try and pay these fees, and he can't, so
Speaker 2: he drops out. And then eventually he goes to the
Speaker 2: Kansas City Eclectic Medical School, which is again is a
Speaker 2: nonsense it's just a front. They were known as diploma mills,
Speaker 2: and he just buys a diploma in the same way
Speaker 2: that occasionally Charlatan's get exposed today because they've bought a
Speaker 2: PhD online.
Speaker 1: Okay, so he's got a fig leaf of a qualification,
Speaker 1: but he hasn't any got any serious training. And then
Speaker 1: he ends up in Milford, Kansas. How did he end
Speaker 1: up there from Chicago?
Speaker 2: He ditches his wife by the way in between these
Speaker 2: two points, and his children, he just leaves them and
Speaker 2: he takes up with another woman called Minnie, who he
Speaker 2: bigamously marries. And at this point he's trying to run
Speaker 2: a kind of a medical center in Chicago where he's
Speaker 2: basically injecting men with colored water and telling them that
Speaker 2: this is good for their manly vigor. And the authorities
Speaker 2: get wise to it, and so he needs to get
Speaker 2: out there quick smart. And there's an advert for the
Speaker 2: town of Milford where they need a physician. So he
Speaker 2: thinks that will do me and him and Minnie pack
Speaker 2: up their spotted handkerchief and head to Kansas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then yeah, flu hits and he tends people.
Speaker 2: He was really popular.
Speaker 1: I mean, aside manner will get you along well. And
Speaker 1: with flu. I mean at the time, there's no flu vaccine.
Speaker 1: I guess there's no treatment, so you just kind of
Speaker 1: like be nice to people and.
Speaker 2: Be nice to people.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But he was really popular when he first arrives
Speaker 2: because he's this new doctor. Nobody's questioning that he calls
Speaker 2: himself a doctor. It's a small rual town. There's a
Speaker 2: few hundred people, and they're just thrilled to have a doctor.
Speaker 1: And then somehow he makes this leap from eclectic medicine,
Speaker 1: so basically colored water and some herbs and spices, and
Speaker 1: I mean that's pretty ordinary. It's a lot of people
Speaker 1: doing that at this point in history. He leaps into
Speaker 1: the goat gland game. Yeah. I know that there are
Speaker 1: different accounts of the first operation, but we know that
Speaker 1: he did, in fact in plant goatlands. So what where
Speaker 1: would I really I'm going to regret asking this. Where
Speaker 1: did he put them?
Speaker 2: Well, he put them into the testicles, into the scrotums
Speaker 2: of men, and there are descriptions of the surgery that
Speaker 2: he did.
Speaker 1: Scrotums being stretchedy there's room for four testicles rather than two.
Speaker 2: That's you've pretty much got it. So he had this
Speaker 2: idea that you had to use the goat's gland within
Speaker 2: twenty minutes of severing it. So he would basically castraight
Speaker 2: the goats, cut out the gland from the testicle, put
Speaker 2: it in salted water to keep it at room temperature,
Speaker 2: and then rush it into the other room where he
Speaker 2: would have numbed up his victims scrotum with local anesthetic,
Speaker 2: and then with two incisions he would put the entire
Speaker 2: gland just under the surface of the skin. And he
Speaker 2: said that he was doing things like joining up blood
Speaker 2: vessels and ensuring oxygen to play. He wasn't doing any
Speaker 2: of that. He's just jamming a bullock in and then
Speaker 2: he stitches it up. That's what he was doing. I
Speaker 2: can't for you, but don't you know what. He didn't
Speaker 2: come up with this in a vacuum. This was the
Speaker 2: time of very very early hormone treatment. And I say
Speaker 2: early in the fact that they discovered what hormones were.
Speaker 2: And he wasn't the only mad person grafting testicles into
Speaker 2: other testicles. There was an American Russian physician called Serge
Speaker 2: Voronov who at least was medically qualified, right, and he
Speaker 2: was doing it with monkey to worse. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but you could do.
Speaker 1: The thinking is part of the story, actually, which is
Speaker 1: that you've got these quacks, but the mainstream of medical
Speaker 1: practice is not necessarily any better. It doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: any more evidence. They've just got more authority.
Speaker 2: And it made sense to them in a way of like, right,
Speaker 2: we've discovered that testosterone is important for men and it
Speaker 2: makes them feel peppy, and we've discovered it's made in testicles.
Speaker 2: So if we take a testicle and we put it
Speaker 2: in another testicle, see how it's fallen apart quite quickly.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: But I was like, I was with you right up
Speaker 2: until that.
Speaker 1: It feels like spinal tap. Four testicles for test is
Speaker 1: more than two.
Speaker 2: So that was the theory behind it. So you've got
Speaker 2: serge Varanov doing it with monkey glands. Apparently he wasn't
Speaker 2: in certain the entire glands. He was cutting slivers off
Speaker 2: and then stitching it up inside men's scrota. He at
Speaker 2: least was medically trained and had some gloss of pseudoscience
Speaker 2: with it. Brinkley had nothing. He just had a scalpel
Speaker 2: and a goat.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I find most astonishing about this
Speaker 1: is that a load of men seemed really keen to
Speaker 1: have this done. It was hugely popular around the block.
Speaker 2: It was hugely popular. The gland therapy, as it was
Speaker 2: called at the time, was really big in the twenties
Speaker 2: and thirties. You could even buy like rejuvenating face cream
Speaker 2: that claimed it was made from glands. It was like
Speaker 2: the thing because it was like a pseudo hormone treatment.
Speaker 2: The absolute apex of it was having actual testicles. So
Speaker 2: apparently the first person that came to Brinkley and when
Speaker 2: would you please put a goat testicle inside mine? And
Speaker 2: he went, oh, I'll have to have a think about
Speaker 2: that eventually, when yeah, are right. So he said that
Speaker 2: he wanted to do this because he was impotent in
Speaker 2: his wife want to get pregnant, and lo and behold,
Speaker 2: his wife becomes pregnant, the baby is born. They call
Speaker 2: him Billy, of course they do, and it's hailed as
Speaker 2: the first goat gland baby. Because if there's one thing
Speaker 2: Brinkley is amazing at its self publicity. I've got in
Speaker 2: front of me a copy of his advertisement for Billy,
Speaker 2: the first goat gland.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, baby.
Speaker 2: So if I shared that well.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at a cute baby. It doesn't look at
Speaker 1: all like a goat, does it. I mean a toddler,
Speaker 1: I guess, other than a baby, but it looks about one.
Speaker 1: But yes, Kansas surgeon uses goat glands to cure sterility.
Speaker 1: First goat gland baby, Dr John R. Brinkley and Billy amazing.
Speaker 2: So he uses this as an opportunity to launch this
Speaker 2: incredible treatment. This young boy, Billy is used as the
Speaker 2: definitive proof and it's pedaled as this cure. It'll get
Speaker 2: rid of impotence, it will pep you up, it'll rejuvenate
Speaker 2: your sex life. And he was charging people. Well, it's
Speaker 2: about seven hundred and fifty dollars, but in today's money,
Speaker 2: that's well over ten grand.
Speaker 1: Off the top of my head, I would say that's
Speaker 1: probably a year's income, depends exactly how you make that.
Speaker 2: Just show how desperate people were for this treatment though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and people today spend a great deal for fertility treatment.
Speaker 1: You know, it's enormously important.
Speaker 2: Of course, just cast your mind back to when viagra
Speaker 2: was launched.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people lost.
Speaker 2: Their minds with it, didn't it. There was reports of
Speaker 2: doctors having to stamp prescriptions. With a rubber stamp because
Speaker 2: the hand was cramping from signing so many of them.
Speaker 2: So that's how popular viagra was. This was their viagra, Yes,
Speaker 2: and they really thought that it was going to work.
Speaker 2: So he is cues around the block, and not just
Speaker 2: from the local community. There was Chinese patients who came
Speaker 2: to see him that had been traveling around the world
Speaker 2: and thought they would just stop off in Kansas to
Speaker 2: have goat testicles put inside themselves, and it becomes this
Speaker 2: huge media sensation.
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons why nerds like me
Speaker 1: are very keen on randomized trials, because people are able
Speaker 1: to convince themselves that all sorts of things work. Impotence
Speaker 1: is sometimes just in your head. Yeah, Sometimes it's got
Speaker 1: a physical cause. Sometimes you're overthinking it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I can well imagine that this guy went home
Speaker 1: from his goatland operation full of confidence and suddenly he
Speaker 1: he could get it up.
Speaker 2: So when they look at placebo effect, it's more effective
Speaker 2: if the person a ministering the treatment looks like a
Speaker 2: doctor has a white coatconn dot cells doctor. If there's
Speaker 2: some level of surgical intervention, we're more inclined to believe.
Speaker 2: And this has got all of the above, plus when
Speaker 2: they go home they actually do have a lump in
Speaker 2: their scrotum that is a coach testical. So I mean,
Speaker 2: I am unaware if there is any medical benefit whatsoever
Speaker 2: to do in this. I'm going to go out on
Speaker 2: a limb and say.
Speaker 1: No, Kate, you can't argue with results. Baby Billy was born.
Speaker 1: Baby Billy, the first goatland baby. Customers are happy. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that anything is going to go wrong, but
Speaker 1: we'll find out after the break. You are listening to
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales with me Tim Harford with my special guest,
Speaker 1: doctor Kate Lister of the brilliant Betwixt the Sheets podcast,
Speaker 1: And so after the break we will hear the next
Speaker 1: twist in the story about how the goat gland doctor
Speaker 1: became a radio star. Welcome back to Cautionary Tales with me,
Speaker 1: Tim Harford and the inimitable doctor Kate Lister. So, Kate,
Speaker 1: we were one hundred years ago, the early nineteen twenties.
Speaker 1: At this point, just how big was Brinkley's goat gland
Speaker 1: transplant operation.
Speaker 2: It was big, and it was growing all the time
Speaker 2: because the more he did it, the more he self publicized.
Speaker 2: The more people wanted to come and see him, so
Speaker 2: it becomes this beast that's feeding on itself. And he
Speaker 2: would do things like get famous newspaper editors to come
Speaker 2: and have a transplant, and they would then report on
Speaker 2: their progress. Some guy from the La Times, Henry Chandler,
Speaker 2: came down, and I know, I know that's that's commitment
Speaker 2: to journalists.
Speaker 1: I've med a couple of newspapers. I'm not sure they'd.
Speaker 2: Go for the more testicons, but he would do things
Speaker 2: like that, and then he would and then so then
Speaker 2: he's got major newspapers writing about him and his absolute
Speaker 2: true degra is. He leapt into radio and he utilized
Speaker 2: that in such a powerful way. He set up his
Speaker 2: own radio station and they called it KFKB.
Speaker 1: Kansas First Kansas.
Speaker 2: Kansas First, Kansas Best.
Speaker 1: But it's very much it's the TikTok of the nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: This is the new cutting edge way of communicating.
Speaker 2: And it really was cutting edge as well. And he
Speaker 2: would have local acts and local music groups come on
Speaker 2: and do their little bit, like local choirs would come
Speaker 2: on and sing. But as well, he had his own
Speaker 2: segment twice daily where he would dispense medical advice, which
Speaker 2: you're into very dubious territory here. Again, people from all
Speaker 2: over the country would write in about their medical complaints.
Speaker 1: All over the country. I thought it was a local
Speaker 1: radio station.
Speaker 2: It had a really big reach. It it wasn't listened
Speaker 2: to just in Kansas. Is that the power of this
Speaker 2: thing was enormous. I think at one point it was
Speaker 2: the biggest radio station in the country, the most popular
Speaker 2: and most listened to radio show.
Speaker 1: So he's a huge success. Massive that sort of success
Speaker 1: must start to attract screutiny.
Speaker 2: Well it does. It's not local radio, so other people
Speaker 2: are listening in, and you've got a situation where Brinkley
Speaker 2: is reading out random people's medical complaints, diagnosing them live
Speaker 2: on the air, and then prescribing a treatment that only
Speaker 2: his pharmacy could supply. Oneing is going off there. But
Speaker 2: it was again massively, massively popular. But you can imagine
Speaker 2: other doctors, real doctors with actual credentials, listening into this
Speaker 2: and going.
Speaker 1: Hang on a minute, hang on a minute.
Speaker 2: Just give me a second. So he's getting way, way,
Speaker 2: way too big for his boots. So he's making loads
Speaker 2: of money, and his nemesis was an actual proper doctor
Speaker 2: Maurice Fishbeine, who was a member of the American Medical Association,
Speaker 2: and he was hell bent on exposing quacks and charlatans,
Speaker 2: of which, as we've already said, there were many, and
Speaker 2: this was his life's work. So he was on to
Speaker 2: Brinkley pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: And he didn't hold back, did he.
Speaker 2: He did not, He did not.
Speaker 1: Got one quote in front of me says he described
Speaker 1: Brinkley as a charlatan of the rankest sort, whose radio
Speaker 1: station was being used to victimize people and to enrich himself,
Speaker 1: which I don't know seems fair enough.
Speaker 2: All true, that's exactly what was happening. But you've got
Speaker 2: to remember that Brinkley had managed to cultivate this huge
Speaker 2: popularity in the local community and well in the wider
Speaker 2: community as well. So to begin with Maurice Fishbeine, there's
Speaker 2: this sort of lone voice, like all you mean trying
Speaker 2: to take away our young successful doctor. And of course
Speaker 2: the Milford residents love it because it's bringing loads of
Speaker 2: money to the town. It's bringing loads of business into
Speaker 2: the town.
Speaker 1: They don't want to challenge, they don't want to challenge.
Speaker 2: Shut up, shut up.
Speaker 1: I mean I found this when Cautionary Tails did the
Speaker 1: story of the Radium Dial Company and these poor young
Speaker 1: women who were giving themselves radium poisoning working painting this
Speaker 1: radioactive paint on watchfaces and other things. One of the
Speaker 1: problems they faced was that not only did the doctors
Speaker 1: not take them seriously, and not only did the company
Speaker 1: deny everything, but their local community ostracized them. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: they were like, you are going to shut down this factory.
Speaker 1: It's the nineteen thirties, it's a tough time economically. You're
Speaker 1: going to destroy everyone's jobs just because you're moaning about
Speaker 1: the fact that your jaws falling off or something. They
Speaker 1: were so lonely because the local community would not back
Speaker 1: them against the Radium Dial Company. And it seems like
Speaker 1: we've got a similar thing going on here with Brinkley
Speaker 1: that yeah, okay, fine, maybe the goat glands work, maybe
Speaker 1: they don't, but this is jobs, this is.
Speaker 2: Jobs, this is income. And it's also put Milford on
Speaker 2: the map. Great the capital, isn't it fabulous? And there
Speaker 2: are loads of people out there really think that he's
Speaker 2: helped them. There are many others that did not. He
Speaker 2: was sued at least twelve times in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 2: because unsurprisingly, these operations were not the success. He's not
Speaker 2: going to give the testimonials of the people who wander
Speaker 2: back in and going scrotum's gone purple. There were people
Speaker 2: having infections, there were people that died. Actually, so he
Speaker 2: was soon and kind of managed to bat it away
Speaker 2: and hush it up each time. But Maurice Fishbeine was
Speaker 2: not going to let it go. He was extremely angry,
Speaker 2: and so he starts exposing him in very highly publicized
Speaker 2: news articles, and then more people are kind of asking
Speaker 2: questions of like hang on a minute, which means not
Speaker 2: a doctor, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So do the authorities do anything?
Speaker 2: They do Eventually, I mean they have to get involved
Speaker 2: because he's probably to seeing medicine without a license. He's
Speaker 2: operating on people with no qualifications or reason to do
Speaker 2: this at all. So eventually it is frowned upon. Even
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirties, it's cause for people to have a
Speaker 2: think about it. So in nineteen thirty he was called
Speaker 2: before the Kansas Medical Board to face eleven charges. It
Speaker 2: is like, can you show as your medical certificate? And
Speaker 2: he's just holding up a piece of paper with doctor
Speaker 2: written and crayon on it.
Speaker 1: So when the Kansas Medical Board looked into his qualifications
Speaker 1: and what sort of investigation did they do?
Speaker 2: They did a pretty thorough investigation, actually, which in an
Speaker 2: act of it's not even confidence, it's just lunacy. But
Speaker 2: this is how much of a charlatan he was. He
Speaker 2: actually invited members of the medical Board came and watch
Speaker 2: him do one of his procedures.
Speaker 1: And they came, and they came.
Speaker 2: Of course they came. So representatives come down and they
Speaker 2: watch him literally sewing goat balls into a human being
Speaker 2: with unsterilized equipment, at which point he's like tadah and
Speaker 2: is genuinely shocked that they go, holy, no more for you, No,
Speaker 2: you are done. It's worth saying as well here that
Speaker 2: the boy goats survived, but the girl goats that he
Speaker 2: took overaries out of the graft into women did not.
Speaker 1: You will know one think of the goats.
Speaker 2: No, just somebody justice for the goats. That's all that
Speaker 2: I'm saying. They often get left out of this particular story.
Speaker 1: I see that his license to practice was revoked on
Speaker 1: the grounds of gross immorality and unprofessional conduct.
Speaker 2: Yes, you can't get much firmer than that.
Speaker 1: Can you No, you can't. Okay, he's lost his license
Speaker 1: to practice medicine, potentially a disaster. He's still got the
Speaker 1: radio though, He's still got that potential cash cow.
Speaker 2: He does, and it's a big cash cow as well,
Speaker 2: And he's still got his Doctor Brinkley Show, and he's
Speaker 2: still offering up medical advice and people are still writing
Speaker 2: in and he's still pedaling his quack cures and it's
Speaker 2: all right for a while, but our mate Morris Fishbeine
Speaker 2: hasn't forgotten about it, and the pressure is now coming
Speaker 2: on the Kansas authorities to investigate whether it is ethical
Speaker 2: or not to have a disbarred lunatic offering up medical advice.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the Federal Radio Commission get involved in the end,
Speaker 1: the spoil sports.
Speaker 2: Spoil sports. But again, that's exactly what he is doing.
Speaker 2: He isn't a medically qualified doctor. The advice that he's
Speaker 2: given up is just gibberish, and he's administering care to
Speaker 2: actual sick people. They're writing in with things that really
Speaker 2: are wrong with them.
Speaker 1: He's got no idea what he's talking about, not.
Speaker 2: A clue, not a clue. So eventually they have to
Speaker 2: pull the plug. On it and no more surgery and
Speaker 2: no more radio for you.
Speaker 1: So things are not looking good for doctor John R.
Speaker 1: Brinkley because he's not a doctor anymore, and neither is
Speaker 1: he a DJ anymore. He's lost his radio show. Surely, though,
Speaker 1: this can't be the end. This man is a master
Speaker 1: of reinvention. Doctor Kate Lister will be back to he
Speaker 1: knew his story after the break. You're listening to Cautionary
Speaker 1: Tales with me Tim Harford and my guest, doctor Kate
Speaker 1: Lister of the Betwixt the Sheets podcast. So, Kate, we've
Speaker 1: been hearing the story of doctor Brinkley is a showman
Speaker 1: without a show because he's lost his goat gland practice,
Speaker 1: he's lost his radio station. What's he going to do?
Speaker 2: If there was any other normal human being, you'd just
Speaker 2: give up, wouldn't you. You'd be I've been shamed on
Speaker 2: a national level here, I've been exposed as the worst
Speaker 2: kind of charlatan. But not Brinkley. He decides politics. That's
Speaker 2: the place for me. That's what I will do. So
Speaker 2: he who.
Speaker 1: Would have thought that a failed convent would be attracted
Speaker 1: by politics?
Speaker 2: It was the olden days, Tim will We'll never see
Speaker 2: the like again. So he runs twice to be the
Speaker 2: governor of Kansas.
Speaker 1: That's a big job.
Speaker 2: It's a big job.
Speaker 1: Well, he's not just running for mayor governor of Kansas.
Speaker 2: As we've discovered, not being remotely qualified for a position
Speaker 2: is no obstacle to Brinkley. He just can do attitude.
Speaker 1: And so he's got all the stars of his KFKB
Speaker 1: radio station who can kind of chill for him and
Speaker 1: support him. How does it go? I mean, is he
Speaker 1: is he crushed?
Speaker 2: Not nearly as epically as you would hope that he
Speaker 2: would be. It's a reasonably close call. I think eventually
Speaker 2: he came in third. I think. So they had this
Speaker 2: rule in place where if the vote didn't match exactly
Speaker 2: the name that he's running under, which was John R. Brinkley,
Speaker 2: then the vote would be discounted. So if somebody didn't
Speaker 2: put J. R. Brinkley, if they just put something like
Speaker 2: Doc Brinkley, it would just be thrown out immediately. And
Speaker 2: it has been suggested that if that hadn't happened, he
Speaker 2: might have taken it.
Speaker 1: So he doesn't win in nineteen thirty because of all
Speaker 1: those votes for Doc Brinkley and John Brinkley and he
Speaker 1: doesn't get in. He nearly makes it. He tries again
Speaker 1: Ineen thirty two, loses again. Can't be it for Brinkley.
Speaker 2: Well, the second time that he ran, it did more
Speaker 2: damage to his public image because his opponents realized that
Speaker 2: they could make a mockery of him, and they did.
Speaker 2: They held him up as just this crank goat ball
Speaker 2: guy who's been disbarred and discredited, and so it created
Speaker 2: even done.
Speaker 1: More damage earlier. But okay, eventually they figure out that
Speaker 1: sort of time.
Speaker 2: Actually, so he upsticks and he moves to dl Rio, Texas,
Speaker 2: which is way down there on the border, where he
Speaker 2: tries again to practice medicine. Only this time he takes
Speaker 2: an increased interest in people's prostate glands.
Speaker 1: Why do I think that's worse? Somehow, I think that's
Speaker 1: even worse.
Speaker 2: But okay, I don't think that he's injecting or grafting
Speaker 2: anything into anybody, but he's certainly examining people. And this
Speaker 2: is like a world of suppositories and it's all nonsense.
Speaker 2: And again it's the same thing. It's that, Oh, it's
Speaker 2: manly vigor it will rejuvenate you. He gets another radio show,
Speaker 2: radio another radio show, which again proves to be incredibly popular,
Speaker 2: and again is his downfall. Because he can't just go
Speaker 2: somewhere and shut up and do his weird prostate thing.
Speaker 2: He has to broadcast it, so again he attracts attention.
Speaker 1: But the border is important there, right, because he can
Speaker 1: put the radio transmitter in Mexico. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So he gets around the American authorities that way,
Speaker 2: because he's not allowed to do it in America but
Speaker 2: from Mexico, even though they can hear it in America.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think they called it a border blaster. So
Speaker 1: he's got this massive radio mast near his home, but
Speaker 1: it's in Mexico, and therefore he's immune to American regulation.
Speaker 2: And again, this show is broadcast across the states. You
Speaker 2: could pick it up in every single one of the states.
Speaker 2: It was that powerful.
Speaker 1: So he resurrects his career, if indeed it ever really
Speaker 1: went away. By nineteen thirty eight, he's got another hospital
Speaker 1: in ar Yeah, he's living the high life. He's got mansions,
Speaker 1: he's got yachts, cadillacs, luxury holidays. Nothing can go wrong
Speaker 1: for Doc Brinkley.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Maurice Fishburne hadn't forgotten about him.
Speaker 1: Oh right, he's old nemesis, old nemesis.
Speaker 2: And of course, because Brinkley can't keep quiet and stay
Speaker 2: off the radar, Maurice Fishbine is just like, right, I'll
Speaker 2: have you, and he publishes a number of exposes calling
Speaker 2: him a quack and a charlatan and in a is
Speaker 2: it a desperate act? Is it a mad act? It's
Speaker 2: certainly what Oscar Wilde ended up doing. Brinkley, to defend
Speaker 2: himself against this, decides that he's going to sue him
Speaker 2: for libel. Bold move a terrible don't do it if
Speaker 2: what the person is saying is perfectly.
Speaker 1: True, because it all then gets laid out in court,
Speaker 1: all of it, All of.
Speaker 2: It gets laid out in court. The goat glands, the
Speaker 2: unsterilized equipment they're operating while drunk, the fact that forty
Speaker 2: two people that we know of died from these awful
Speaker 2: operations because of infection, and god knows what else, and
Speaker 2: how many goats died. Justice for the goats.
Speaker 1: I think we're probably gonna lead with the forty two
Speaker 1: people dying suggestion. But yes, fair enough, but that's not
Speaker 1: good for Brinkley, And.
Speaker 2: None of it's good for Brinkley. Obviously, the court finds
Speaker 2: in fish mind's favor.
Speaker 1: I love the jury verdict is that Brinkley should be
Speaker 1: considered a charlatan and a quack in the ordinary, well
Speaker 1: understood meaning of these words like it. I like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And there you go. And now there's a legal
Speaker 2: precedent for it. He is legally a quack and a charlatan.
Speaker 1: And then I would love to have been a flower
Speaker 1: on a wall when this letter arrives. The Irs sue
Speaker 1: him for tax fraud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he wasn't paying his taxes. Of course he wasn't.
Speaker 1: Who would have thought?
Speaker 2: Who would have thought?
Speaker 1: And then the Post Office sue him for male fraud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people sued him. It's like shark circling, isn't it?
Speaker 2: And like once somebody's made the first bite is they're
Speaker 2: all going him. He loses everything and we're not going
Speaker 2: to feel remotely sorry for him at all.
Speaker 1: Right, So this is the end of the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's basically the end for Brinkley's career.
Speaker 2: Pretty much all avenues have been cut after him. He
Speaker 2: kind of limps along for a little bit, muttering about
Speaker 2: the injustice of it and about trying to resurrect some
Speaker 2: kind of nonsense career, but he eventually suffers multiple heart attacks,
Speaker 2: so his health is failing, and he died in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty two, penniless and in disgrace.
Speaker 1: Kate, this has been a joy. Whenever we have one
Speaker 1: of our cautionary conversations, I always try to reflect, always
Speaker 1: want to learn the lessons from history. So one lesson
Speaker 1: I've learned is that I'm not going to have goat
Speaker 1: testicles implanted in my scrotum.
Speaker 2: A wise move.
Speaker 1: But maybe there were who knows, maybe there were even
Speaker 1: broader lessons to draw. What do you take from all this?
Speaker 2: I think there are lots of lessons from this for
Speaker 2: the modern world, because medical quackery is still very much
Speaker 2: with us. There's still people out there pedaling or manners
Speaker 2: of lotions and potions and pills and powders claiming to
Speaker 2: do this, that and the other, and it doesn't do
Speaker 2: any than of the sort. And I think check your
Speaker 2: credentials as well as like look into the background of
Speaker 2: the person that's selling you something. Just because they put
Speaker 2: on a good show doesn't mean that they absolutely know
Speaker 2: what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how much gets sold basically
Speaker 1: by influencers. Now you know, it's on YouTube, it's on TikTok,
Speaker 1: And actually the main reason why people buy it is because, well,
Speaker 1: they like the influence, so they find them impressive. They
Speaker 1: think they're cool, and that's enough.
Speaker 2: We should just be a bit firm with that and
Speaker 2: just say no, we shouldn't be selling nonsense to people,
Speaker 2: no matter what it does.
Speaker 1: I'm all in favor of actual evidence evidence. You know.
Speaker 1: The other thing this whole story reminded me of Kate
Speaker 1: is do you know lydia E pinkm Lily the Pink?
Speaker 2: I do know the story of Lily the Pink.
Speaker 1: Yes, So we did a cautionary tale about her. And
Speaker 1: as you know, she developed this medicinal compound most efficacious
Speaker 1: in every case, and it was basically just booze and
Speaker 1: some herbs and probably didn't do much harm. Probably also
Speaker 1: didn't do much good. But what I was really struck
Speaker 1: by is, oh, yeah, she's a quack, right, there's no
Speaker 1: evidence that this works. She's got no particular credentials, and
Speaker 1: they set up this operation and it makes a huge
Speaker 1: amount of money. Then I looked at what the actual
Speaker 1: qualified medical profession had to offer for women's troubles. So
Speaker 1: we're talking period pains, extreme period pains, miscarriages, prolapse uteruses,
Speaker 1: none of which the docs at the time were really
Speaker 1: very interested in diagnosing. But what doctors were doing was
Speaker 1: prescribing medicines such as calamel. Calamel's basically just a mercury compound.
Speaker 1: It rots your face away, it's poisonous. I mean, Lily
Speaker 1: was basically just giving people some medicine that was about
Speaker 1: as strong as sherry. Wasn't really going to do them
Speaker 1: any harm. And so one of the lessons that I drew,
Speaker 1: and I think this does tie into to Brinkley too,
Speaker 1: is if people are not getting what they need from
Speaker 1: mainstream medicine, of course they're going to look for alternatives.
Speaker 2: And Lydia Pinkham was another master personal image, wasn't she.
Speaker 2: She had her face on billboards up and down the country.
Speaker 2: Is this trustworthy woman with her efficacious compounds so famous?
Speaker 1: Great little story when Queen Victoria died some newspapersors didn't
Speaker 1: actually have a photograph of Queen Victoria, so they slapped
Speaker 1: a picture of Lydia Pinkham and Stixley. You know, lady
Speaker 1: of a certain age looks about right.
Speaker 2: Close enough, close enough?
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I suppose that this is the broader lesson, right.
Speaker 1: If we don't have the real thing, we go for
Speaker 1: a substitute. That's true if it's a photograph of Queen
Speaker 1: Victoria or Lydia Pinkham. But it's also true for medicines. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So two very different characters, but fundamentally they're both spotting
Speaker 1: a gap in the market and exploiting it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, or marketing themselves really successfully.
Speaker 1: Marketing is a It's the best drug, isn't it? Kate,
Speaker 1: This has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me. What do we call it?
Speaker 2: Betwixt the Cautionary Cautionary Tales?
Speaker 1: Well, if people would like a pure and unadulterated shot
Speaker 1: of Betwixt the Sheets. The podcast is available in all
Speaker 1: the usual pod.
Speaker 2: Places available wherever you get your podcast. Just give us
Speaker 2: a Google and we will jump.
Speaker 1: Up and just give us a five second. What is
Speaker 1: Betwixt the Sheets? For people who don't know.
Speaker 2: Betwixt the sheet is us having a look at the
Speaker 2: ced side of history and getting betwixt the sheets of
Speaker 2: the great and the good, and they're not so great
Speaker 2: in the good as well, and learning what our ancestors
Speaker 2: got up to in the sack.
Speaker 1: It's a joy to listen to. I love it, so
Speaker 1: I hope some more people will discover it. Katelister, thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: For a full list of our sources, see the show
Speaker 1: notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary Tales is written by
Speaker 1: me Tim Harfor with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines and Ryan Dilly.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Alice Fines and Marilyn Rust. The sound
Speaker 1: design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise.
Speaker 1: Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio.
Speaker 1: Bend A daf Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features
Speaker 1: the voice talents of Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembrough,
Speaker 1: Sarah Jupp, messaam Monroe, Jamal Westman, and rufus Wright. The
Speaker 1: show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of
Speaker 1: Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody,
Speaker 1: Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey, and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardore Studios
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