WEBVTT - Dr. Brinkley's Miracle Cure For Impotence (with Betwixt The Sheets) 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:23.410 Pushkin. Milford, Kansas, nineteen seventeen, a forty six year old 0:00:23.450 --> 0:00:27.370 farmer walks into the local drug store and bashfully asks 0:00:27.450 --> 0:00:30.130 the town's young doctor if you can talk to him 0:00:30.130 --> 0:00:35.970 about a rather delicate matter. Although John Romulus Brinkley is 0:00:36.010 --> 0:00:40.050 a newcomer to the rural Kansas town, he's proven himself 0:00:40.090 --> 0:00:45.050 by helping the locals through a recent flu epidemic. Sensing 0:00:45.050 --> 0:00:49.290 the man's embarrassment, the doctor ushers him into a back room. 0:00:49.650 --> 0:00:55.970 The problem is, the man explains, hesitatingly, he's lacking in pep, 0:00:56.610 --> 0:01:01.210 his attires are flat. In short, he can't get it up. 0:01:02.170 --> 0:01:04.850 He and his wife long for a child to complete 0:01:04.890 --> 0:01:10.690 their family. Can The doctor help explains that he's tried 0:01:10.890 --> 0:01:16.930 treating the sexually weak with serums and tinctures and even electricity, 0:01:17.330 --> 0:01:22.250 but nothing has worked. Then, remembering his time working at 0:01:22.290 --> 0:01:25.930 an abattoir, Brinkley jokes, you wouldn't have any trouble if 0:01:25.970 --> 0:01:29.330 you had a pair of those buck glands in you. Well, 0:01:29.530 --> 0:01:33.690 why don't you put him in? Asks the farmer. Brinkley 0:01:33.770 --> 0:01:36.850 will later say that he felt seconded by the idea 0:01:36.930 --> 0:01:40.130 and tried to halt the conversation by explaining the grave 0:01:40.210 --> 0:01:43.850 health risks, but the farmer is desperate to father a 0:01:43.970 --> 0:01:48.370 child and willing to give anything a go I don't 0:01:48.410 --> 0:01:52.970 have a goat, the doctor protests, I do, the farmer replies, 0:01:53.770 --> 0:01:56.770 and so late one night, the farmer, along with his 0:01:56.850 --> 0:02:00.730 billy goat, pays a visit to the doctor's office for 0:02:00.770 --> 0:02:05.690 a testicle transplant. Two weeks later, the farmer makes another 0:02:05.850 --> 0:02:08.810 late night visit to the doctor's office, this time with 0:02:08.890 --> 0:02:11.650 a spring in his step and a check for one 0:02:11.730 --> 0:02:15.250 hundred and fifty dollars equivalent to thousands of dollars today. 0:02:16.090 --> 0:02:19.770 He is delighted with his goat gland implants and has 0:02:19.770 --> 0:02:26.490 been telling his friends. Soon more men are making late 0:02:26.610 --> 0:02:30.450 night visits to the Milford drug store. Dr Brinkley needs 0:02:30.490 --> 0:02:34.650 bigger premises and a barn for the goats. Patients will 0:02:34.730 --> 0:02:37.850 pick out the beasts whose testicles they want implanted into 0:02:37.850 --> 0:02:42.410 their own. Men will come from all over America seeking treatment. 0:02:43.210 --> 0:02:47.730 Brinkley travels too, setting up temporary clinics across America and 0:02:47.810 --> 0:02:52.530 even taking his treatments abroad. Newspapers report on the touring 0:02:52.890 --> 0:02:56.290 goat gland doctor, and the man himself discovers that the 0:02:56.330 --> 0:03:01.210 cutting edge technology of radio can bring him even more patients, 0:03:01.930 --> 0:03:04.850 so many he'll have to build a proper road between 0:03:04.930 --> 0:03:09.970 Milford Railway Station and his hospital. A man is as 0:03:10.090 --> 0:03:13.650 old as his glands, and his glands are as old 0:03:13.650 --> 0:03:18.490 as his sex glands, Brinkley tells his patients. So eager 0:03:18.530 --> 0:03:22.130 are they to feel the effects of revitalized sex clans, 0:03:22.450 --> 0:03:25.890 that few stopped to ponder the medical credentials of the 0:03:26.010 --> 0:03:31.850 charming Dr Brinkley. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to 0:03:32.090 --> 0:04:02.090 Cautionary Tales. Dr John Romulus Brinkley was a showman, a 0:04:02.130 --> 0:04:06.890 great self publicist, and an unreliable narrator. The story about 0:04:06.890 --> 0:04:10.610 the farmer, for example, comes from Brinkley himself, and not 0:04:10.890 --> 0:04:14.650 everything he said was true, In particular, not everything he 0:04:14.770 --> 0:04:19.170 said about his own medical qualifications. To guide us through 0:04:19.210 --> 0:04:23.130 the fantastical claims of Dr John R. Brinkley and his 0:04:23.330 --> 0:04:27.770 no less fantastical life is doctor Kate Lister, host of 0:04:27.810 --> 0:04:31.770 one of my favorite podcasts, Betwixt the Sheets, the History 0:04:31.810 --> 0:04:36.170 of Sex, scandal and Society. Kate, I am a huge fan. 0:04:36.570 --> 0:04:37.730 Welcome to Cautionary Tales. 0:04:37.810 --> 0:04:40.050 Well, thank you very much for having me on. I'm 0:04:40.130 --> 0:04:42.250 always happy to talk about goat glands. 0:04:42.770 --> 0:04:45.890 I mean with the crossover between betwixt the Sheets and 0:04:45.930 --> 0:04:49.250 cautionary Tales, is it's not too hard to find? 0:04:50.210 --> 0:04:52.370 No, this has been a long time coming, hasn't it? 0:04:52.490 --> 0:04:56.170 Really? No pun intended, but yes, it really has, it 0:04:56.210 --> 0:05:00.090 really has. I am very, very keen to hear more 0:05:00.130 --> 0:05:03.650 about doctor Brinkley, if you will pardon the pun. His 0:05:03.730 --> 0:05:04.650 story is nuts. 0:05:05.970 --> 0:05:08.290 He was a fucking lunatic, That's who he was. 0:05:09.490 --> 0:05:12.210 So I think we already gathered that, but give us 0:05:12.210 --> 0:05:14.650 the backstory. So before we get into these unusual treatments, 0:05:14.970 --> 0:05:16.850 what was his early life like with was there any 0:05:16.930 --> 0:05:19.250 sign of this interest in goat lands? 0:05:20.250 --> 0:05:22.890 What we know about him is gathered from his own 0:05:22.930 --> 0:05:26.690 testimony and testimony of people he knew him, and various 0:05:26.730 --> 0:05:29.370 historical records. But you've got to take everything with a 0:05:29.410 --> 0:05:32.050 pinch assault when it comes to Brinkley, because he was 0:05:32.090 --> 0:05:34.850 the master of spin. He appears to have been born 0:05:34.970 --> 0:05:38.570 in Carolina only a decade after the Civil War had ended, 0:05:38.690 --> 0:05:40.450 so you sort of have to factor that into it. 0:05:40.450 --> 0:05:43.130 It was the bloodiest conflict America had ever seen, so 0:05:43.250 --> 0:05:46.010 it's a post war world. Everyone's kind of walking around 0:05:46.010 --> 0:05:50.090 like what on earth was that he's born? He grows 0:05:50.170 --> 0:05:53.650 up quite poor. His parents die when he's young, and 0:05:53.690 --> 0:05:57.610 he's raised by and an uncle, and he gets married 0:05:57.970 --> 0:06:00.970 in his twenties. At some point he works in an avatar, 0:06:01.330 --> 0:06:03.650 which is where we think he first saw a goat 0:06:03.690 --> 0:06:06.650 and went, oh, I'll store that away for future. 0:06:07.010 --> 0:06:07.890 Yeah, I could use that. 0:06:08.010 --> 0:06:10.610 Yes, For some reason, he thought that a goat was 0:06:10.610 --> 0:06:13.210 the most hygienic animal. That's he first read flag that one, 0:06:13.210 --> 0:06:13.530 isn't it. 0:06:13.570 --> 0:06:16.290 I have all sorts of thoughts about goats, but hygienic 0:06:16.410 --> 0:06:18.450 is not the one that doesn't leap to mind of it. 0:06:18.690 --> 0:06:21.250 Maybe that's just my own ignorance. 0:06:21.010 --> 0:06:23.810 Maybe that's just our goat prejudice. But anyway, he thought 0:06:23.850 --> 0:06:28.410 that they were fantastic. He gets married to his first wife, 0:06:28.450 --> 0:06:31.050 a woman called Sally Wick, and they go on the 0:06:31.130 --> 0:06:34.930 road as this kind of traveling medicine act together. So 0:06:35.050 --> 0:06:39.530 you've already got the start of this combining of quack 0:06:39.730 --> 0:06:43.930 medicine and showmanship. So they would go to rural towns 0:06:43.930 --> 0:06:46.130 and sort of put on a big show for the 0:06:46.170 --> 0:06:50.170 local folks and then flog them well snake oil really 0:06:50.330 --> 0:06:53.090 just just nonsense and rubbish, but they were pretty good 0:06:53.090 --> 0:06:53.450 at it. 0:06:53.490 --> 0:06:55.970 As a famous economics paper about the history of the 0:06:56.010 --> 0:07:01.330 market for snake oil, and it grew hugely during the 0:07:01.370 --> 0:07:04.730 period we're discussing, so the late eighteen hundreds and then 0:07:04.770 --> 0:07:07.410 the first half of the twentieth century, huge market, and 0:07:07.490 --> 0:07:11.010 a lot of it involved circuses, So you had to 0:07:11.010 --> 0:07:13.170 get a crowd in order to sell them whatever it 0:07:13.210 --> 0:07:15.010 was that you were selling them, and circus is a 0:07:15.050 --> 0:07:16.210 good way to attract attention. 0:07:16.370 --> 0:07:18.890 It is completely mad. I mean, would you take medical 0:07:18.890 --> 0:07:20.770 advice from a clown at a circus? 0:07:21.250 --> 0:07:24.130 Nothing against clowns, but that wouldn't be my first board 0:07:24.130 --> 0:07:26.890 of call. But I guess when we think about the 0:07:26.970 --> 0:07:32.090 demand for what we might call unproven treatments today being 0:07:32.530 --> 0:07:35.930 that's true. So on the TikTok on YouTube, and again 0:07:35.970 --> 0:07:38.650 it's attention. You've got an influencer, somebody who you're paying 0:07:38.650 --> 0:07:41.530 attention to because they're doing interesting things, and then suddenly 0:07:41.530 --> 0:07:44.130 they're trying to sell you their latest goop or creams 0:07:44.170 --> 0:07:46.970 or pills and not so different. 0:07:47.090 --> 0:07:49.130 But if he'd been around today, I think he would 0:07:49.130 --> 0:07:51.770 have been on TikTok, would Brinkley. But he was traveling 0:07:51.770 --> 0:07:55.810 around towns, he's doing his act, he's selling nonsense, and 0:07:55.850 --> 0:07:59.690 then at some point he tries to settle down in Chicago, 0:07:59.810 --> 0:08:01.770 and he must have had a thought along the way 0:08:01.770 --> 0:08:03.530 of like, I'm not really a doctor. 0:08:03.810 --> 0:08:06.730 Yeah, well, okay, spoiler, he's not a doctor. 0:08:08.290 --> 0:08:10.490 Something must have occurred to like, I'm treating all these 0:08:10.530 --> 0:08:12.770 people and I'm not a medical person. 0:08:12.890 --> 0:08:15.210 So he had no medical qualification? 0:08:15.610 --> 0:08:18.410 Can do attitude? Tim? Is what he had? He had? 0:08:21.210 --> 0:08:22.730 Did he claim to be a doctor or did he 0:08:22.810 --> 0:08:24.530 have any sort of qualifications at all? 0:08:24.610 --> 0:08:27.730 Not at this point, and the qualifications that he does 0:08:27.810 --> 0:08:31.410 get are best described as gubious. He went to study 0:08:31.410 --> 0:08:35.410 at the Chicago Bennett Medical School. Eclectic medicine was just 0:08:35.770 --> 0:08:39.050 sort of the study of botany, herbal cures and a 0:08:39.050 --> 0:08:41.890 bit of physiotherapy as well, So it's already a little 0:08:41.930 --> 0:08:45.370 bit okay, and it's not an accredited college that he's 0:08:45.370 --> 0:08:47.890 studying at, and he doesn't even manage to finish it 0:08:47.930 --> 0:08:50.050 because he can't pay the tuition fees. At this point, 0:08:50.050 --> 0:08:52.210 he seems to be working a lot of different jobs 0:08:52.210 --> 0:08:53.770 to try and pay these fees, and he can't, so 0:08:53.850 --> 0:08:56.970 he drops out. And then eventually he goes to the 0:08:57.050 --> 0:09:00.010 Kansas City Eclectic Medical School, which is again is a 0:09:00.050 --> 0:09:02.890 nonsense it's just a front. They were known as diploma mills, 0:09:02.930 --> 0:09:05.970 and he just buys a diploma in the same way 0:09:05.970 --> 0:09:08.970 that occasionally Charlatan's get exposed today because they've bought a 0:09:09.130 --> 0:09:10.370 PhD online. 0:09:10.450 --> 0:09:13.370 Okay, so he's got a fig leaf of a qualification, 0:09:13.570 --> 0:09:16.210 but he hasn't any got any serious training. And then 0:09:16.250 --> 0:09:18.250 he ends up in Milford, Kansas. How did he end 0:09:18.330 --> 0:09:19.610 up there from Chicago? 0:09:20.370 --> 0:09:22.890 He ditches his wife by the way in between these 0:09:22.930 --> 0:09:26.250 two points, and his children, he just leaves them and 0:09:26.290 --> 0:09:28.850 he takes up with another woman called Minnie, who he 0:09:28.890 --> 0:09:33.570 bigamously marries. And at this point he's trying to run 0:09:33.770 --> 0:09:36.970 a kind of a medical center in Chicago where he's 0:09:36.970 --> 0:09:40.170 basically injecting men with colored water and telling them that 0:09:40.210 --> 0:09:43.250 this is good for their manly vigor. And the authorities 0:09:43.250 --> 0:09:45.010 get wise to it, and so he needs to get 0:09:45.010 --> 0:09:48.330 out there quick smart. And there's an advert for the 0:09:48.370 --> 0:09:51.490 town of Milford where they need a physician. So he 0:09:51.570 --> 0:09:55.610 thinks that will do me and him and Minnie pack 0:09:55.690 --> 0:09:57.770 up their spotted handkerchief and head to Kansas. 0:09:58.010 --> 0:10:01.170 Yeah, and then yeah, flu hits and he tends people. 0:10:01.490 --> 0:10:03.250 He was really popular. 0:10:03.650 --> 0:10:07.330 I mean, aside manner will get you along well. And 0:10:07.370 --> 0:10:10.050 with flu. I mean at the time, there's no flu vaccine. 0:10:10.210 --> 0:10:12.290 I guess there's no treatment, so you just kind of 0:10:12.330 --> 0:10:13.810 like be nice to people and. 0:10:13.850 --> 0:10:14.770 Be nice to people. 0:10:15.010 --> 0:10:15.210 Yeah. 0:10:16.170 --> 0:10:19.530 Yeah, But he was really popular when he first arrives 0:10:19.570 --> 0:10:23.730 because he's this new doctor. Nobody's questioning that he calls 0:10:23.770 --> 0:10:26.090 himself a doctor. It's a small rual town. There's a 0:10:26.090 --> 0:10:29.490 few hundred people, and they're just thrilled to have a doctor. 0:10:29.690 --> 0:10:34.210 And then somehow he makes this leap from eclectic medicine, 0:10:34.250 --> 0:10:37.410 so basically colored water and some herbs and spices, and 0:10:37.530 --> 0:10:39.610 I mean that's pretty ordinary. It's a lot of people 0:10:39.610 --> 0:10:43.450 doing that at this point in history. He leaps into 0:10:44.090 --> 0:10:46.730 the goat gland game. Yeah. I know that there are 0:10:46.730 --> 0:10:49.610 different accounts of the first operation, but we know that 0:10:49.690 --> 0:10:52.610 he did, in fact in plant goatlands. So what where 0:10:52.610 --> 0:10:55.410 would I really I'm going to regret asking this. Where 0:10:55.410 --> 0:10:56.050 did he put them? 0:10:57.530 --> 0:11:01.490 Well, he put them into the testicles, into the scrotums 0:11:01.810 --> 0:11:05.090 of men, and there are descriptions of the surgery that 0:11:05.170 --> 0:11:05.810 he did. 0:11:05.810 --> 0:11:08.930 Scrotums being stretchedy there's room for four testicles rather than two. 0:11:09.170 --> 0:11:11.610 That's you've pretty much got it. So he had this 0:11:11.730 --> 0:11:14.890 idea that you had to use the goat's gland within 0:11:14.930 --> 0:11:18.010 twenty minutes of severing it. So he would basically castraight 0:11:18.410 --> 0:11:21.650 the goats, cut out the gland from the testicle, put 0:11:21.690 --> 0:11:25.050 it in salted water to keep it at room temperature, 0:11:25.050 --> 0:11:27.370 and then rush it into the other room where he 0:11:27.370 --> 0:11:31.410 would have numbed up his victims scrotum with local anesthetic, 0:11:31.810 --> 0:11:35.090 and then with two incisions he would put the entire 0:11:35.130 --> 0:11:37.650 gland just under the surface of the skin. And he 0:11:37.730 --> 0:11:40.050 said that he was doing things like joining up blood 0:11:40.130 --> 0:11:43.450 vessels and ensuring oxygen to play. He wasn't doing any 0:11:43.450 --> 0:11:48.170 of that. He's just jamming a bullock in and then 0:11:48.250 --> 0:11:51.370 he stitches it up. That's what he was doing. I 0:11:51.450 --> 0:11:54.210 can't for you, but don't you know what. He didn't 0:11:54.210 --> 0:11:56.410 come up with this in a vacuum. This was the 0:11:56.450 --> 0:11:59.610 time of very very early hormone treatment. And I say 0:11:59.850 --> 0:12:02.610 early in the fact that they discovered what hormones were. 0:12:03.370 --> 0:12:08.370 And he wasn't the only mad person grafting testicles into 0:12:08.410 --> 0:12:11.970 other testicles. There was an American Russian physician called Serge 0:12:12.050 --> 0:12:15.210 Voronov who at least was medically qualified, right, and he 0:12:15.370 --> 0:12:18.210 was doing it with monkey to worse. I don't know. 0:12:18.290 --> 0:12:19.450 I don't know, but you could do. 0:12:19.570 --> 0:12:21.890 The thinking is part of the story, actually, which is 0:12:21.930 --> 0:12:25.210 that you've got these quacks, but the mainstream of medical 0:12:25.250 --> 0:12:28.010 practice is not necessarily any better. It doesn't necessarily have 0:12:28.010 --> 0:12:31.090 any more evidence. They've just got more authority. 0:12:30.690 --> 0:12:32.610 And it made sense to them in a way of like, right, 0:12:32.690 --> 0:12:37.130 we've discovered that testosterone is important for men and it 0:12:37.250 --> 0:12:41.570 makes them feel peppy, and we've discovered it's made in testicles. 0:12:42.290 --> 0:12:43.890 So if we take a testicle and we put it 0:12:43.890 --> 0:12:46.490 in another testicle, see how it's fallen apart quite quickly. 0:12:46.490 --> 0:12:46.650 Now. 0:12:47.050 --> 0:12:50.450 But I was like, I was with you right up 0:12:50.530 --> 0:12:51.250 until that. 0:12:51.490 --> 0:12:54.130 It feels like spinal tap. Four testicles for test is 0:12:54.130 --> 0:12:54.730 more than two. 0:12:56.090 --> 0:12:58.690 So that was the theory behind it. So you've got 0:12:58.770 --> 0:13:03.530 serge Varanov doing it with monkey glands. Apparently he wasn't 0:13:03.570 --> 0:13:06.490 in certain the entire glands. He was cutting slivers off 0:13:06.610 --> 0:13:10.570 and then stitching it up inside men's scrota. He at 0:13:10.650 --> 0:13:14.570 least was medically trained and had some gloss of pseudoscience 0:13:14.690 --> 0:13:18.690 with it. Brinkley had nothing. He just had a scalpel 0:13:18.730 --> 0:13:19.170 and a goat. 0:13:19.730 --> 0:13:22.770 And the thing that I find most astonishing about this 0:13:23.330 --> 0:13:25.650 is that a load of men seemed really keen to 0:13:25.690 --> 0:13:28.290 have this done. It was hugely popular around the block. 0:13:28.370 --> 0:13:31.810 It was hugely popular. The gland therapy, as it was 0:13:31.850 --> 0:13:34.010 called at the time, was really big in the twenties 0:13:34.050 --> 0:13:37.130 and thirties. You could even buy like rejuvenating face cream 0:13:37.250 --> 0:13:39.770 that claimed it was made from glands. It was like 0:13:39.890 --> 0:13:43.610 the thing because it was like a pseudo hormone treatment. 0:13:44.130 --> 0:13:49.090 The absolute apex of it was having actual testicles. So 0:13:49.210 --> 0:13:52.770 apparently the first person that came to Brinkley and when 0:13:52.970 --> 0:13:56.330 would you please put a goat testicle inside mine? And 0:13:56.530 --> 0:13:59.090 he went, oh, I'll have to have a think about 0:13:59.130 --> 0:14:03.130 that eventually, when yeah, are right. So he said that 0:14:03.170 --> 0:14:04.330 he wanted to do this because he was impotent in 0:14:04.370 --> 0:14:06.450 his wife want to get pregnant, and lo and behold, 0:14:06.490 --> 0:14:08.570 his wife becomes pregnant, the baby is born. They call 0:14:08.610 --> 0:14:11.930 him Billy, of course they do, and it's hailed as 0:14:11.970 --> 0:14:14.410 the first goat gland baby. Because if there's one thing 0:14:14.450 --> 0:14:18.210 Brinkley is amazing at its self publicity. I've got in 0:14:18.250 --> 0:14:22.250 front of me a copy of his advertisement for Billy, 0:14:22.290 --> 0:14:23.570 the first goat gland. 0:14:23.370 --> 0:14:24.090 Oh wow, baby. 0:14:24.170 --> 0:14:25.850 So if I shared that well. 0:14:25.970 --> 0:14:29.130 I'm looking at a cute baby. It doesn't look at 0:14:29.130 --> 0:14:30.690 all like a goat, does it. I mean a toddler, 0:14:30.770 --> 0:14:32.730 I guess, other than a baby, but it looks about one. 0:14:33.010 --> 0:14:37.690 But yes, Kansas surgeon uses goat glands to cure sterility. 0:14:38.090 --> 0:14:44.770 First goat gland baby, Dr John R. Brinkley and Billy amazing. 0:14:44.970 --> 0:14:47.690 So he uses this as an opportunity to launch this 0:14:47.810 --> 0:14:51.370 incredible treatment. This young boy, Billy is used as the 0:14:51.410 --> 0:14:55.170 definitive proof and it's pedaled as this cure. It'll get 0:14:55.250 --> 0:14:57.730 rid of impotence, it will pep you up, it'll rejuvenate 0:14:57.770 --> 0:15:00.610 your sex life. And he was charging people. Well, it's 0:15:00.610 --> 0:15:02.890 about seven hundred and fifty dollars, but in today's money, 0:15:02.890 --> 0:15:04.130 that's well over ten grand. 0:15:04.330 --> 0:15:05.850 Off the top of my head, I would say that's 0:15:05.890 --> 0:15:09.330 probably a year's income, depends exactly how you make that. 0:15:09.450 --> 0:15:11.890 Just show how desperate people were for this treatment though. 0:15:11.970 --> 0:15:15.090 Yeah, and people today spend a great deal for fertility treatment. 0:15:15.130 --> 0:15:16.730 You know, it's enormously important. 0:15:16.730 --> 0:15:19.570 Of course, just cast your mind back to when viagra 0:15:19.690 --> 0:15:20.210 was launched. 0:15:20.330 --> 0:15:21.930 Yeah, people lost. 0:15:21.770 --> 0:15:24.050 Their minds with it, didn't it. There was reports of 0:15:24.090 --> 0:15:27.370 doctors having to stamp prescriptions. With a rubber stamp because 0:15:27.370 --> 0:15:30.170 the hand was cramping from signing so many of them. 0:15:30.330 --> 0:15:33.570 So that's how popular viagra was. This was their viagra, Yes, 0:15:33.610 --> 0:15:35.970 and they really thought that it was going to work. 0:15:36.010 --> 0:15:38.050 So he is cues around the block, and not just 0:15:38.050 --> 0:15:40.850 from the local community. There was Chinese patients who came 0:15:40.890 --> 0:15:42.850 to see him that had been traveling around the world 0:15:42.890 --> 0:15:45.290 and thought they would just stop off in Kansas to 0:15:45.290 --> 0:15:48.610 have goat testicles put inside themselves, and it becomes this 0:15:49.530 --> 0:15:51.210 huge media sensation. 0:15:51.490 --> 0:15:54.290 This is one of the reasons why nerds like me 0:15:54.770 --> 0:15:59.290 are very keen on randomized trials, because people are able 0:15:59.330 --> 0:16:02.570 to convince themselves that all sorts of things work. Impotence 0:16:02.890 --> 0:16:05.690 is sometimes just in your head. Yeah, Sometimes it's got 0:16:05.690 --> 0:16:07.810 a physical cause. Sometimes you're overthinking it. 0:16:08.010 --> 0:16:08.210 Yeah. 0:16:08.410 --> 0:16:10.770 And I can well imagine that this guy went home 0:16:10.770 --> 0:16:15.250 from his goatland operation full of confidence and suddenly he 0:16:15.250 --> 0:16:16.010 he could get it up. 0:16:16.290 --> 0:16:19.170 So when they look at placebo effect, it's more effective 0:16:19.250 --> 0:16:21.370 if the person a ministering the treatment looks like a 0:16:21.370 --> 0:16:23.930 doctor has a white coatconn dot cells doctor. If there's 0:16:23.930 --> 0:16:27.570 some level of surgical intervention, we're more inclined to believe. 0:16:27.970 --> 0:16:30.610 And this has got all of the above, plus when 0:16:30.610 --> 0:16:33.050 they go home they actually do have a lump in 0:16:33.090 --> 0:16:37.130 their scrotum that is a coach testical. So I mean, 0:16:37.650 --> 0:16:41.090 I am unaware if there is any medical benefit whatsoever 0:16:41.770 --> 0:16:43.570 to do in this. I'm going to go out on 0:16:43.610 --> 0:16:44.570 a limb and say. 0:16:44.490 --> 0:16:48.490 No, Kate, you can't argue with results. Baby Billy was born. 0:16:48.650 --> 0:16:52.930 Baby Billy, the first goatland baby. Customers are happy. I 0:16:52.970 --> 0:16:56.490 can't imagine that anything is going to go wrong, but 0:16:57.930 --> 0:17:01.250 we'll find out after the break. You are listening to 0:17:01.450 --> 0:17:04.850 Cautionary Tales with me Tim Harford with my special guest, 0:17:04.970 --> 0:17:08.930 doctor Kate Lister of the brilliant Betwixt the Sheets podcast, 0:17:09.570 --> 0:17:12.170 And so after the break we will hear the next 0:17:12.330 --> 0:17:16.010 twist in the story about how the goat gland doctor 0:17:16.490 --> 0:17:30.330 became a radio star. Welcome back to Cautionary Tales with me, 0:17:30.490 --> 0:17:35.210 Tim Harford and the inimitable doctor Kate Lister. So, Kate, 0:17:35.690 --> 0:17:38.450 we were one hundred years ago, the early nineteen twenties. 0:17:38.930 --> 0:17:42.850 At this point, just how big was Brinkley's goat gland 0:17:42.970 --> 0:17:44.250 transplant operation. 0:17:44.810 --> 0:17:47.490 It was big, and it was growing all the time 0:17:47.730 --> 0:17:51.690 because the more he did it, the more he self publicized. 0:17:51.930 --> 0:17:54.490 The more people wanted to come and see him, so 0:17:54.530 --> 0:17:57.570 it becomes this beast that's feeding on itself. And he 0:17:57.610 --> 0:18:02.170 would do things like get famous newspaper editors to come 0:18:02.210 --> 0:18:05.170 and have a transplant, and they would then report on 0:18:05.250 --> 0:18:09.650 their progress. Some guy from the La Times, Henry Chandler, 0:18:09.810 --> 0:18:13.570 came down, and I know, I know that's that's commitment 0:18:13.570 --> 0:18:14.130 to journalists. 0:18:14.170 --> 0:18:16.850 I've med a couple of newspapers. I'm not sure they'd. 0:18:16.570 --> 0:18:21.490 Go for the more testicons, but he would do things 0:18:21.530 --> 0:18:23.610 like that, and then he would and then so then 0:18:23.650 --> 0:18:28.130 he's got major newspapers writing about him and his absolute 0:18:28.130 --> 0:18:33.530 true degra is. He leapt into radio and he utilized 0:18:33.570 --> 0:18:36.170 that in such a powerful way. He set up his 0:18:36.210 --> 0:18:39.690 own radio station and they called it KFKB. 0:18:39.290 --> 0:18:42.330 Kansas First Kansas. 0:18:41.410 --> 0:18:43.010 Kansas First, Kansas Best. 0:18:42.810 --> 0:18:45.730 But it's very much it's the TikTok of the nineteen twenty. 0:18:46.570 --> 0:18:49.010 This is the new cutting edge way of communicating. 0:18:49.450 --> 0:18:51.810 And it really was cutting edge as well. And he 0:18:51.890 --> 0:18:56.810 would have local acts and local music groups come on 0:18:56.890 --> 0:18:59.250 and do their little bit, like local choirs would come 0:18:59.250 --> 0:19:02.570 on and sing. But as well, he had his own 0:19:02.690 --> 0:19:07.210 segment twice daily where he would dispense medical advice, which 0:19:07.730 --> 0:19:11.210 you're into very dubious territory here. Again, people from all 0:19:11.250 --> 0:19:15.130 over the country would write in about their medical complaints. 0:19:14.690 --> 0:19:16.050 All over the country. I thought it was a local 0:19:16.130 --> 0:19:16.690 radio station. 0:19:16.970 --> 0:19:20.290 It had a really big reach. It it wasn't listened 0:19:20.290 --> 0:19:22.690 to just in Kansas. Is that the power of this 0:19:22.730 --> 0:19:26.170 thing was enormous. I think at one point it was 0:19:26.210 --> 0:19:29.490 the biggest radio station in the country, the most popular 0:19:29.530 --> 0:19:31.050 and most listened to radio show. 0:19:31.970 --> 0:19:36.690 So he's a huge success. Massive that sort of success 0:19:36.810 --> 0:19:38.570 must start to attract screutiny. 0:19:38.650 --> 0:19:41.450 Well it does. It's not local radio, so other people 0:19:41.530 --> 0:19:44.370 are listening in, and you've got a situation where Brinkley 0:19:44.570 --> 0:19:49.330 is reading out random people's medical complaints, diagnosing them live 0:19:49.370 --> 0:19:52.370 on the air, and then prescribing a treatment that only 0:19:52.490 --> 0:19:58.170 his pharmacy could supply. Oneing is going off there. But 0:19:58.250 --> 0:20:01.090 it was again massively, massively popular. But you can imagine 0:20:01.130 --> 0:20:05.490 other doctors, real doctors with actual credentials, listening into this 0:20:05.850 --> 0:20:06.570 and going. 0:20:06.490 --> 0:20:09.370 Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. 0:20:09.450 --> 0:20:13.410 Just give me a second. So he's getting way, way, 0:20:13.410 --> 0:20:15.410 way too big for his boots. So he's making loads 0:20:15.410 --> 0:20:18.970 of money, and his nemesis was an actual proper doctor 0:20:19.250 --> 0:20:23.690 Maurice Fishbeine, who was a member of the American Medical Association, 0:20:24.090 --> 0:20:26.970 and he was hell bent on exposing quacks and charlatans, 0:20:27.010 --> 0:20:29.770 of which, as we've already said, there were many, and 0:20:29.850 --> 0:20:31.890 this was his life's work. So he was on to 0:20:32.050 --> 0:20:33.930 Brinkley pretty quickly. 0:20:34.010 --> 0:20:35.930 And he didn't hold back, did he. 0:20:35.930 --> 0:20:37.650 He did not, He did not. 0:20:38.330 --> 0:20:41.770 Got one quote in front of me says he described 0:20:41.770 --> 0:20:45.850 Brinkley as a charlatan of the rankest sort, whose radio 0:20:45.850 --> 0:20:49.890 station was being used to victimize people and to enrich himself, 0:20:50.250 --> 0:20:52.130 which I don't know seems fair enough. 0:20:52.210 --> 0:20:55.090 All true, that's exactly what was happening. But you've got 0:20:55.090 --> 0:20:58.610 to remember that Brinkley had managed to cultivate this huge 0:20:58.650 --> 0:21:03.410 popularity in the local community and well in the wider 0:21:03.410 --> 0:21:06.890 community as well. So to begin with Maurice Fishbeine, there's 0:21:06.930 --> 0:21:09.610 this sort of lone voice, like all you mean trying 0:21:09.650 --> 0:21:12.690 to take away our young successful doctor. And of course 0:21:12.730 --> 0:21:15.290 the Milford residents love it because it's bringing loads of 0:21:15.330 --> 0:21:18.010 money to the town. It's bringing loads of business into 0:21:18.010 --> 0:21:18.370 the town. 0:21:18.490 --> 0:21:20.810 They don't want to challenge, they don't want to challenge. 0:21:20.890 --> 0:21:21.930 Shut up, shut up. 0:21:22.170 --> 0:21:24.730 I mean I found this when Cautionary Tails did the 0:21:24.730 --> 0:21:28.370 story of the Radium Dial Company and these poor young 0:21:28.410 --> 0:21:32.730 women who were giving themselves radium poisoning working painting this 0:21:33.010 --> 0:21:36.810 radioactive paint on watchfaces and other things. One of the 0:21:36.810 --> 0:21:40.370 problems they faced was that not only did the doctors 0:21:40.370 --> 0:21:42.570 not take them seriously, and not only did the company 0:21:42.610 --> 0:21:46.850 deny everything, but their local community ostracized them. Yeah, because 0:21:46.890 --> 0:21:49.650 they were like, you are going to shut down this factory. 0:21:50.570 --> 0:21:53.730 It's the nineteen thirties, it's a tough time economically. You're 0:21:53.730 --> 0:21:56.330 going to destroy everyone's jobs just because you're moaning about 0:21:56.330 --> 0:21:58.770 the fact that your jaws falling off or something. They 0:21:58.810 --> 0:22:02.410 were so lonely because the local community would not back 0:22:02.490 --> 0:22:06.330 them against the Radium Dial Company. And it seems like 0:22:06.370 --> 0:22:08.930