Goat Testicle Transplants: The Bizarre History

Summary

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society
Episode Summary: "Goat Testicle Transplants: The Bizarre History"
Release Date: February 7, 2025
Host: Kate Lister
Guest: Tim Hartford from Cautionary Tales

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Introduction

In the February 7, 2025 episode of Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society, host Kate Lister delves into one of the most outrageous chapters in medical history: the saga of John R. Brinkley and his infamous goat testicle transplant operations. Partnering with Tim Hartford from the Cautionary Tales podcast, Kate unpacks how Brinkley’s audacious schemes not only captivated the public but also highlighted the perennial vulnerabilities in medical regulation and public trust.

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John Brinkley's Early Life and Rise as a Quack Doctor

John R. Brinkley’s journey into medical quackery began in the early 20th century. Born in post-Civil War Carolina, Brinkley faced a tumultuous upbringing marked by poverty and the loss of his parents at a young age. Raised by his aunts and uncle, he eventually married Sally Wick and ventured into the traveling medicine show business. As Kate Lister explains:

"He'd go to rural towns, put on a big show, and flog snake oil and colored water as miracle cures." (07:15)

Brinkley's initial foray into medical pseudo-science involved eclectic medicine—a field steeped in botany and herbal cures—but his ambitions soon outstripped his qualifications. Unable to afford legitimate medical training, Brinkley resorted to purchasing diplomas from dubious institutions like the Kansas City Eclectic Medical School, effectively branding himself as a "doctor" without any credible credentials.

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Goat Testicle Transplants: Procedure and Popularity

Brinkley's most notorious claim was his development of goat testicle transplants, a procedure he marketed as a cure for impotence and a method to rejuvenate men's vigor. The procedure involved surgically implanting goat testicles into human scrotums, a practice devoid of any scientific basis or medical benefit. During the episode, Cait Lister vividly describes the operation:

"He'd castrate the goat, extract the testicle, preserve it in salted water, numb the patient’s scrotum, make incisions, and surgically jam the goat gland under the skin." (12:58)

The audacity of this procedure was matched by its popularity. Priced at around $750—a significant sum equivalent to over $10,000 today—many desperate men flocked to Brinkley, hoping for a cure. The first purported success story was a baby named Billy, born to a woman who had undergone the transplant, which Brinkley used as a testimonial to validate his methods:

"Kansas surgeon uses goat glands to cure sterility. First goat gland baby. And they call him Billy." (19:12)

The success of these operations was largely psychological, driven by the placebo effect and Brinkley’s charismatic showmanship rather than any tangible medical improvement.

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Brinkley's Media Savvy and Radio Show

Brinkley's influence extended beyond the operating table. Recognizing the power of media, he established his own radio station, KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best), which became a pivotal platform for promoting his dubious medical advice and treatments. As Cait Lister notes:

"He had local acts and music groups, but more importantly, he had segments where he'd dispense medical advice live on air." (25:58)

This radio presence allowed Brinkley to reach a national audience, attracting patients from across the United States and even international listeners. His ability to blend entertainment with pseudo-medical advice mirrored modern-day influencer marketing, as Tim Hartford draws parallels to contemporary social media platforms:

"It's like the TikTok of the 1920s, this new cutting-edge way of communicating." (25:27)

Through his broadcasts, Brinkley amplified his reach, convincing countless individuals of the efficacy of his goat gland transplants and other unproven treatments.

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Opposition from Medical Authorities

Brinkley's meteoric rise inevitably attracted the ire of legitimate medical professionals. Morris Fishbein, a staunch member of the American Medical Association (AMA), emerged as Brinkley’s primary antagonist. Fishbein was relentless in his efforts to expose Brinkley as a charlatan. Cait Lister recounts their confrontations:

"Fishbein published a number of exposes calling him a quack and a charlatan, laying bare all his fraudulent practices." (27:28)

Despite Brinkley’s attempts to maintain his facade, including inviting medical board members to witness his goat gland surgeries—only to have them exposed to the incompetence and immorality of his practices—he could not sustain his deception indefinitely. During one such investigation, as Tim Hartford summarizes:

"They came to watch him perform the surgery and saw firsthand the gross immorality and unprofessional conduct." (31:08)

This exposure led to legal actions, including multiple lawsuits for malpractice and eventually a decisive court ruling labeling Brinkley as a charlatan.

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Brinkley's Attempted Political Career

Refusing to be sidelined, Brinkley pivoted toward politics, leveraging his notoriety to run for Governor of Kansas. His campaign was marked by the same showmanship that defined his medical practices. However, due to stringent electoral rules requiring exact name matches on ballots, many of his votes were discounted, preventing a fair tally. Cait Lister explains:

"There was a law that if the votes didn’t specifically match the submitted name 'John R. Brinkley,' they would be discounted. So votes for 'Doc Brinkley' were thrown out." (36:10)

Despite his charismatic appeals and substantial local support, Brinkley failed to secure the governorship, further damaging his public image as opponents capitalized on his disreputable past.

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Downfall and Legacy

Brinkley's relentless pursuit of fame and fortune eventually caught up with him. Following his unsuccessful political bid, he relocated to Del Rio, Texas, where he continued his unlicensed medical practices, focusing on prostate treatments. However, his operations remained unregulated and ethically questionable. The federal authorities, particularly the Federal Radio Commission, intervened, ultimately shutting down his radio broadcasts and medical practices.

Legal and financial troubles compounded Brinkley's decline, leading to IRS and postal fraud charges. As Cait Lister poignantly narrates:

"By the end of the 1930s, all avenues had been cut off. Brinkley limped along, muttering about injustices until his death in 1942 from heart attacks, alone and penniless." (41:41)

Brinkley's legacy serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of unchecked medical practices and the importance of credible regulation and public skepticism.

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Lessons Learned

The episode concludes with reflections on the enduring relevance of Brinkley’s story in today's context of rampant medical misinformation and influencer-driven health fads. Cait Lister emphasizes the necessity of:

"Checking credentials and scrutinizing the backgrounds of those selling miracle cures. Just because someone puts on a good show doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about." (42:03)

Tim Hartford echoes this sentiment, drawing parallels between Brinkley’s tactics and modern-day online influencers who leverage popularity to market ineffective or harmful products. The duo underscores the importance of evidence-based practices and vigilant consumer awareness to prevent history from repeating itself.

"All in favor of actual evidence." (43:21)

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Conclusion

John R. Brinkley’s story is a stark reminder of the vulnerabilities within medical systems and the ease with which charismatic individuals can deceive the masses. Through meticulous research and engaging discussion, Kate Lister and Tim Hartford illuminate the bizarre yet enlightening history of goat testicle transplants, offering enduring lessons on skepticism, regulation, and the timeless battle between legitimate science and fraudulent practices.

For listeners eager to explore more such intriguing historical accounts, upcoming episodes promise deep dives into topics like "Valentine's Day in Ancient Rome" and "The Dark History of the Body Mass Index."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Kate Lister (07:15): "He'd go to rural towns, put on a big show, and flog snake oil and colored water as miracle cures."

• Cait Lister (12:58): "He'd castrate the goat, extract the testicle, preserve it in salted water, numb the patient’s scrotum, make incisions, and surgically jam the goat gland under the skin."

• Cait Lister (19:12): "Kansas surgeon uses goat glands to cure sterility. First goat gland baby. And they call him Billy."

• Cait Lister (27:28): "Fishbein published a number of exposes calling him a quack and a charlatan, laying bare all his fraudulent practices."

• Cait Lister (36:10): "There was a law that if the votes didn’t specifically match the submitted name 'John R. Brinkley,' they would be discounted. So votes for 'Doc Brinkley' were thrown out."

• Cait Lister (41:41): "By the end of the 1930s, all avenues had been cut off. Brinkley limped along, muttering about injustices until his death in 1942 from heart attacks, alone and penniless."

• Cait Lister (42:03): "Checking credentials and scrutinizing the backgrounds of those selling miracle cures. Just because someone puts on a good show doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about."

• Tim Hartford (43:21): "All in favor of actual evidence."

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This summary was crafted based on the transcript provided, capturing the essence and key moments of the episode while ensuring a coherent and engaging narrative for those who haven't listened to the original podcast.

Transcript

[Kate Lister]

Hi, I'm your host, Kate Lister. If you would like betwixt the sheets ad free and get early access. Sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every single week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.

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[Kate Lister]

Hello my lovely betwixters.

[Cait Lister]

It's me, Cait Lister. You are you. I am me.

[Kate Lister]

This is Betwixt the Sheets and if you're a regular around here, you know what's coming. And if you're a newbie, well, just buckle up because I have to tell you, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults, other adults, about adultery things in an adultery way, covering a range of adult subjects. And you should be an adult too. That is just our way of making sure that you feel safe and we are not liable for your trauma. We call that the fair do's Warning. Right, on with the show. Good day to you Betwixters. I appreciate you joining me here in small town America. It's the turn of the 20th century and the strangest traveling medical show is about to take to the road. From the bed of a flatbed truck, this peculiar, charismatic fellow, John Brinkley, will put on a show that makes bold and outlandish claims. He will talk of miracle cures, of being able to stop impotence and how to reverse aging, but really all he's doing is he's flogging coloured water. But that doesn't stop him. And he will go on to have an astonishing medical career, taking the name of quack doctor to whole new levels as he pioneered the treatment of goat testicle transplants. Not into other goats? No, no, into people. He was a consummate con man who preyed on the fears and anxieties of his customers. He also utilized the media to push his message and he almost got away with it. Wanna know more? Well, if you're as curious as I am to hear about this compelling quack and the weird work he carried out.

[Cait Lister]

Step right this way. What do you look for in a man?

[Tim Hartford]

Oh, money, of course.

[Cait Lister]

You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning the knob and pushing the button.

[Tim Hartford]

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness.

[Cait Lister]

What beautiful diamond. Goodness has nothing to do with it, Dearian.

[Kate Lister]

Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal in Society with me, Kate Lister. History is littered with false prophets taking all kinds of bizarre and disturbing forms. John Brinkley is very much in that vein. He promised the world and delivered, well, check notes. Goat testicle transplants. His is a story of wild medical claims of showmanship and criminality and a fair amount of tragedy thrown in, not least for the poor goats. Won't somebody think of the goats in all of this? It's a fascinating tale and one which I delved into recently with Tim Hartford on his wonderfully curious podcast, Cautionary Tales, created by our friends over at Pushkin. Absolutely. Check that one out for more hair raising stories from history. Right, Scalpels and goats at the ready, Betwixters. Let's do it.

[Tim Hartford]

To guide us through the Fantastical claims of Dr. John R. Brinkley and his no less fantastical life is Dr. Kate Lister, host of one of my favorite podcasts, Betwixt the the History of Sex Scandal and Society. Kate, I am a huge fan. Welcome to Cautionary Tales.

[Cait Lister]

Well, thank you very much for having me on. I'm always happy to talk about goat glands.

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, the crossover between betwixt the sheets and is. Well, it's not too hard to find.

[Cait Lister]

This has been a long time coming, hasn't it?

[Tim Hartford]

No pun intended, but yes, it really has. It really has. So I have other quacks to discuss with you in due course, but I am very, very keen to Hear more about Dr. Brinkley. So if you will pardon the pun, his story is nuts.

[Cait Lister]

He was a fucking lunatic, that's who he was.

[Tim Hartford]

Okay, so I think we already gathered that, but give us the backstory. So before we get into these unusual treatments, so what was his early life like? Was there any sign of this interest in Goatlands?

[Cait Lister]

What we know about him is gathered from his own testimony and testimony of people he knew him and various historical records. But you've got to take everything with a pinch of salt when it comes to Brinkley, because he was the master of spin. He liked to tell people that he came from the rural mountain folk in Carolina. He appears to have been born in Carolina only a decade after the Civil War had ended. So you sort of have to factor that into it. It was the bloodiest conflict America had ever seen. So it's a post war world. Everyone's kind of walking around like, what on earth was that? Yeah, he's born, he grows up quite poor. His parents die when he's young and he's raised by aunts, an aunt and an uncle. And he gets married in his 20s. At some point he works in an abattoir, which is where we think he first saw a goat and went, ooh, I'll store that away for future use.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah, I could use that. Yes.

[Cait Lister]

For some reason he thought that a goat was the most hygienic animal. That's your first red flag, that one, isn't it?

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, that's. I have all sorts of thoughts about goats, but hygienic is not the one that.

[Cait Lister]

It doesn't leak to mind, does it?

[Tim Hartford]

Maybe that's just my own ignorance then.

[Cait Lister]

Maybe that's just our goat prejudice. But anyway, he thought that they were fantastic. He gets married to his first wife, a woman called Sally, Sally Wick, and they go on the road as this kind of traveling medicine act together. So you've already got the start of this combining of quack medicine and showmanship. So they would go to rural towns and sort of put on a big show for the local folks and then flog them. Well, snake oil, really. Just nonsense and rubbish. But they were Pretty good at it.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. And this was a huge thing. There's a famous economics paper. I'm an economist, so forgive me. There's a famous economics paper about the history of the market for snake oil. And it grew hugely during the period we're discussing, so the late 1800s and then the first half of the 20th century, huge market. And a lot of it involved circuses. So you had to get a crowd in order to sell them whatever it was that you were selling them. So you needed to attract attention. And, you know, circus is a good way to attract attention.

[Cait Lister]

It seems completely mad. I mean, would you take medical advice from a clown at a circus?

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, nothing against clowns, but that. It wouldn't be my first port of call, but I guess when we think about the demand for what we might call unproven treatments today, they're being.

[Cait Lister]

That's true.

[Tim Hartford]

They're being sold on the TikTok on YouTube. And again, it's attention. You've got an influencer, somebody who you're paying attention to because they're doing interesting things, and then suddenly they're trying to sell you their latest goop or creams or pills. And it's not so different.

[Cait Lister]

But if he'd been around today, I think he would have been on TikTok with Brinkley, but he was traveling around towns. He's doing his act, he's selling nonsense. And then at some point, he tries to settle down in Chicago. And he must have had a thought along the way of like, I'm not really a doctor.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah, well, okay, Spoiler. He's not a doctor.

[Cait Lister]

Something must have occurred to him. Like, I'm treating all these people and I'm not a medical person.

[Tim Hartford]

So he had no medical qualifications.

[Cait Lister]

He can do attitude, Tim, is what he had. He had.

[Tim Hartford]

That's what I wanted. My doctors. I mean, did he claim to be a doctor or did he have any sort of qualifications at all?

[Cait Lister]

Not at this point. And the qualifications that he does get are best described as dubious. So he's in Chicago and he tries to study, and it's called the Chicago Bennett Medical School.

[Tim Hartford]

I like eclectic medicine.

[Cait Lister]

Doesn't it that sound okay? Yeah. Eclectic medicine was just sor. The study of botany, herbal cures, and a bit of physiotherapy as well. So it's already a little bit. And it's not an accredited college that he's studying at. And he doesn't even manage to finish it because he can't pay the tuition fees. At this point, he seems to be Working a lot of different jobs to try and pay these fees, and he can't, so he drops out. He tries to enroll in various other bogus institutions and they all kind of go, no. And then eventually he goes to the Kansas City Eclectic Medical School, which is again, is a nonsense. It's just a front. They were known as diploma mills. And he just buys a diploma in the same way that occasionally charlatans get exposed today because they bought a PhD online.

[Tim Hartford]

It's quite easily done.

[Cait Lister]

It's very easily done.

[Tim Hartford]

Turns out. Okay, so he's got a fig leaf of a qualification. He's got a piece of paper, but he hasn't really got any serious training. And then he ends up in Milford, Kansas. So how did he end up there? From Chicago?

[Cait Lister]

When he's in Chicago, he ditches his wife, by the way, in between these two points, and his children, he just leaves them and he takes up with another woman called Minnie, who he bigamously marries. And at this point, he's trying to run a kind of a medical center in Chicago where he's basically injecting men with colored water and telling them that this is good for their manly vigor. And the authorities get wise to it. And so he needs to get out there quick, smart. And there's an advert for the town of Milford where they need a physician. So he thinks that will do me and him and Minnie pack up their spotted handkerchief and head to Kansas.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. And then. Yeah, flu hits. And he tends people through the.

[Cait Lister]

He was really popular.

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, a good bedside manner will get you a long way. And with flu, I mean, there's no. There was no flu vaccine, I guess there's no treatment. So you just kind of like be nice to people and be nice to people.

[Cait Lister]

Chicken soup.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah.

[Cait Lister]

But he was really popular when he first arrives because he's this new doctor. Nobody's questioning that he calls himself a doctor. It's a small rural town, there's a few hundred people there, and they're just thrilled to have a doctor.

[Tim Hartford]

And then somehow he makes this leap from eclectic medicine. So basically, coloured water and some herbs and spices and. I mean, that's pretty ordinary. There's a lot of people doing that at this point in history. He leaps into the goat gland game.

[Cait Lister]

Yeah.

[Tim Hartford]

I'm gonna regret asking this. So I know that there are different accounts of the first operation, but we know that he did in fact implant goat glands. So what? I really am gonna regret asking this. Where did he put them?

[Cait Lister]

Well, he put them into the testicles, into the Scrotums of men. And there were descriptions of the surgery that he did. So he would.

[Tim Hartford]

So the scrotums being stretchy, there's room for four testicles rather than two.

[Cait Lister]

You've pretty much. He had this idea that you had to use the goat's gland within 20 minutes of severing it. So he would basically castrate the goat, cut out the gland from the testicle, put it in salted water to keep it at room temperature, and then rush it into the other room, where he would have numbed up his victim's scrotum with local anesthetic. And then with two incisions, he would put the entire gland just under the surface of the skin. And he said that he was doing things like joining up blood vessels and ensuring oxygen supply. And he wasn't doing any of that.

[Tim Hartford]

He's jamming it in.

[Cait Lister]

He's just jamming a bullock in and then he stitches it up. That's what he was doing.

[Tim Hartford]

Can't be good for you.

[Cait Lister]

He didn't come up with this in a vacuum. This was the time of very, very early hormone treatment. And I say early in the fact that they discovered what hormones were.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah.

[Cait Lister]

And he wasn't the only mad person grafting testicles into other testicles. There was an American, Russian physician called Serge Voronov, who at least was medically qualified.

[Tim Hartford]

Right.

[Cait Lister]

And he was doing it with monkey testicles.

[Tim Hartford]

I don't know if that makes it better or worse.

[Cait Lister]

I don't know. I don't know. But you could.

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, this is part of the story, actually, which is that the. You've got these quacks, but the mainstream of medical practice is not necessarily any better and doesn't necessarily have any more evidence. They've just got more authority and it.

[Cait Lister]

Made sense to them in a way of like. Right, we've discovered that testosterone is important for men and it makes them feel peppy. And we've discovered it's made in testicles. So if we take a testicle and we put it in another testicle, see how it's fallen apart quite quickly now. I was like. I was with you right up until.

[Tim Hartford]

That feels like spinal tap. Four testicles. Four testicles is more than two.

[Cait Lister]

So that was the theory behind it. So you've got Sergio Varanav doing it with monkey glands. Apparently, he wasn't inserting the entire gland, he was cutting slivers off and then stitching it up inside men's scrotums. He at least was medically trained and had some gloss of pseudoscience. With it, Brinkley had nothing. He just had a scalpel and a goat and decided that this was what he was gonna do. And he was grafting the entire testicle gland in there.

[Tim Hartford]

Now, the thing that I find most astonishing about this is that a load of men seem really keen to have this done.

[Cait Lister]

It was hugely popular.

[Tim Hartford]

Queuing around the block.

[Cait Lister]

It was hugely popular. The gland therapy, as it was called at the time, was really big. In the 20s and 30s, you could even buy, like rejuvenating face cream that claimed it was made from glands. It was like the thing because it was sort of like a pseudo hormone treatment. And the absolute apex of it was having actual testicles grafted. It. It would have been amazing if they could have done it with humans, but they realized there's some ethical issues around that one, so they did it with monkeys. Brinkley did it with goats.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. And they were advertising the goat gland baby. And.

[Cait Lister]

Yes, this. So apparently the first person that came to Brinkley and went, would you please put a goat testicle inside mine? And he went, ooh, I'll have to have a think about that. And then eventually went, yeah, all right, then. So he said that he wanted to do this cause he was impotent and his wife wanted to get pregnant. And lo and behold, his wife becomes pregnant, the baby is born. They call him Billy. Of course they do. And it's hailed as the first goat glam baby. Because if there's one thing Brinkley is amazing at, its self publicity.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah.

[Cait Lister]

So he uses this as an opportunity to launch this incredible treatment. And this young boy, Billy, is used as the definitive proof of, like, look what can happen. And it's peddled as this cure. It'll get rid of impotence, it'll pep you up, it'll rejuvenate your sex life. And if you can imagine how popular this is, just cast your mind back to when Viagra was launched.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah, right.

[Cait Lister]

At least Viagra fucking works. People lost their minds with it, didn't they? There was reports of doctors having to stamp prescriptions with a rubber stamp because they couldn't. The hand was cramping from signing so many of them. So that's how popular Viagra was. This was their Viagra. Y really thought that it was gonna work. So he has cues around the block and not just from the local community. There was Chinese patients who came to see him that had been traveling around the world and thought they would just stop off in Kansas to have goat testicles put inside themselves. And it becomes this huge media Sensation.

[Tim Hartford]

I suppose this is one of the reasons why nerds like me are very keen on randomized trials, because people are able to convince themselves that all sorts of things work. And the placebo effect can be very important. I mean, impotence is sometimes just in your head. Sometimes it's got a physical cause. Sometimes it's just you just, like, you're overthinking it. And I can well imagine that this guy went home from his goat gland operation full of confidence, and suddenly he could get it up.

[Cait Lister]

It's got all the hallmarks when they look at placebo effect. They've also discovered, and I'm sure you're aware of this, that it's more effective if the person administering the treatment looks like a doctor, has a white coat, call themselves a doctor, if there's some level of surgical intervention, with more inclined to believe that it'll have a bigger placebo effect. And this has got all of the above. Plus, when they go home, they actually do have a lump in their scrotum that is a goat's testicle. So, I mean, I am unaware if there is any medical benefit whatsoever to doing this. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. Unlike you, Kate, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor of any description.

[Cait Lister]

I'm not a medical doctor. But I do feel quite confident in saying that the only benefit must have been a placebo effect. Plus, Brinkley talking crap like, it's all coming back through him, isn't it? He's not gonna give the testimonials of the people who wander back in going, mud. Scrotum's gone purple, Kate.

[Tim Hartford]

You can't argue with results. Baby Billy was born. Baby Billy born the first Goatland baby. Customers are happy. I can't imagine that anything is going to go wrong. And the publicity was incredible.

[Cait Lister]

He was a master at it, as all con men are. But I've got in front of me a copy of his advertisement for Billy the First Goat Gland Baby. So if I show that to you.

[Tim Hartford]

I'm looking at, oh, what a cute baby.

[Cait Lister]

It doesn't look at all like a goat, does it?

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, a toddler, I guess, rather than a baby, but he looks about one. But yes. Kansas surgeon uses goat glands to cure sterility. First goat gland baby. And they called him Billy. Billy. Dr. John R. Brinkley and Billy. Amazing.

[Cait Lister]

Doesn't he look like a serial killer? Don't you think? Like somebody Brinkley or Billy.

[Tim Hartford]

I think it's a bit harsh on Billy. Billy Looks rather charming. Yeah. He's got a lot of forehead, quite a weird hairstyle. And it's the round glasses.

[Cait Lister]

It's the round glasses, isn't it? He's got the serial killer glasses on. And he was charging people. Well, it's about $750, but in today's money, that's well over 10 grand to do this.

[Tim Hartford]

Yes. Off the top of my head, I would say that's probably a year's income. Depends exactly how you measure it.

[Cait Lister]

But you know how desperate people were for this treatment, though.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah, but. Yeah, I mean, people today would spend a great deal for fertility treatment, for example. You know, it's enormously important, of course, but you kind of would hope it worked.

[Cait Lister]

But the thing about the story is. Well, it's really interesting about how much we place trust in people. When I was going back over the story to come and talk to you, I was thinking, like, how to get away with it. And then I was thinking about how often do you ask someone who says they're a doctor if they're a doctor? Like, how often? If you go and get some treatment or you go to see your GP or you make an appointment with a therapist or whatever, and it says, doctor, honestly, how many of us actually look up their credentials? Or do we just go, where's a doctor?

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. And there was a case quite recently of a doctor who was struck off and kept kind of practicing as a doctor and sort of fudging it, and people wouldn't ask and he didn't out and out lie, but he presented his credentials in a way that would be easy to misunderstand. And of course, you also have a lot of influencers who will tell you not to believe what the doctors tell you. They know better. And who knows, maybe sometimes they do.

[Cait Lister]

Often they do, but they're always trying to wrestle that away from the people. I mean, there's a lot of things about protected terms and things in there, like, doctor, I'm not a doctor of medicine, I'm a doctor of history. So I'm really careful to only use that title when I'm talking about history, because it could confer an expertise that perhaps I don't have.

[Tim Hartford]

If you're on a plane and they come forward and say, is there a doctor on the flight? You don't stand up.

[Cait Lister]

Unless they'd want poetry reciting to them. No, unless they want me to talk to them about the Battle of Somme.

[Tim Hartford]

Who does not want poetry reciting?

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Tim and John and his goats after this short break.

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[Tim Hartford]

So Kate, we were 100 years ago, the early 1920s at this point. Just how big was Brinkley's goat gland transplant operation at this stage?

[Cait Lister]

It was big and it was growing all the time because the more he did it, the more he self publicized, the more people wanted to come and see him. So it becomes this beast that's feeding on itself. And he would do things like get famous newspaper editors to come and have a Transplant. And they would then report on their progress. So some guy from the LA Times, Henry Chandler, came down and he. I know, I know. See, that's commitment to journalism.

[Tim Hartford]

I've met a couple of newspaper editors. I'm not sure they'd go for the goat line.

[Cait Lister]

But he would do things like that. And then he would. Then he's got major newspapers writing about him. And his absolute coup de grace is he leapt into radio and he utilized that in such a powerful way. He set up his own radio station. It was KFKB and Kansas First, Kansas Best. Kansas First, Kansas Best.

[Tim Hartford]

But it's very much. It's the TikTok of the 1920s, right? This is the new cutting edge way of communicating.

[Cait Lister]

And it really was cutting edge as well. And he would have local acts and local music groups come on and do their little bit, like local choirs would come on and sing. But as well, he had his own segment twice daily where he would dispense medical advice. You're into very dubious territory here again. So readers from all over the country would write in about their medical complaints.

[Tim Hartford]

All over the country. I thought it was a local radio station.

[Cait Lister]

It had a really big reach. It wasn't listened to just in Kansas. The power of this thing was enormous.

[Tim Hartford]

So he's a huge success. That sort of success must start to attract scrutiny.

[Cait Lister]

Well, it does. See, this is the thing. It's not local radio. It was supposed to be. So other people are listening in and you've got a situation where Mr. Brinkley is reading out random people's medical complaints, diagnosing them live on the air, and then prescribing a treatment that only his pharmacy could supply. So whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, warnings going off there. But it was again, massively, massively popular. But you can imagine other doctors, wheeled doctors with actual credentials listening into this and going, hang on a minute, hang on a minute, just give me a second. So he's getting way, way, way too big for his boots and he's making loads of money. And his nemesis was an actual proper doctor, Morris Fishbein, who was a member of the American Medical Association. And he was hell bent on exposing quacks and charlatans, of which, as we've already said, there were many. And this was his life's work. So he was onto Brinkley pretty quickly.

[Tim Hartford]

And he didn't hold back, did he?

[Cait Lister]

He did not. He did not.

[Tim Hartford]

Got one quote in front of me, says he described Brinkley as a charlatan of the rankest sort whose radio station was Being used to victimize people and to enrich himself, which, I don't know, seems fair enough.

[Cait Lister]

It's all true. That's exactly what was happening. But you've got to remember that Brinkley had managed to cultivate this huge popularity in the local community and in the wider community as well. So to begin with, Morris is this sort of lone voice. It's like, oh, you meanie. They trying to take away our young, successful doctor. And of course the Milford residents love it because it's bringing loads of money to the town. It's bringing loads of business into the town.

[Tim Hartford]

So they don't want to challenge this.

[Cait Lister]

They don't want to challenge it. Shut up. Shut up.

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, I found this when Cautionary Tales did the story of the Radium Dial Company and these poor young women who were giving themselves radium poisoning working, painting this radioactive paint on watch faces and other things. One of the problems they faced was that not only did the doctors not take them seriously, and not only did the company deny everything, but their local community ostracized them because they were like, you are gonna shut down this factory. It's the 1930s, it's a tough time economically. You are gonna destroy everyone's jobs just cause you're moaning about the fact that you're jaws fallen off or something. So they were so lonely because the local community would not back them against the Radium Dial Company. And it seems like we've got a similar thing going on here with Brinkley. That, yeah, okay, fine, maybe the goat glands work, maybe they don't. But this is jobs.

[Cait Lister]

This is jobs, this is income. And it's also put Milford on the map. And it just seems to be the.

[Tim Hartford]

Goat gland capital of the United States.

[Cait Lister]

Isn't it fabulous? And there are loads of people out there who really think that he's. There are many others that did not. He was sued at least 12 times in the 1930s because unsurprisingly, these operations were not a success. There were people having infections, there were people that died, actually. So he was sued and kind of managed to bat it away and hush it up each time. But Morris was not going to let it go. He was extremely angry. And so he starts exposing him in very highly publicized news articles. And then more people are kind of asking questions of like, hang on a minute, what do you mean, he's not a doctor? That kind of thing.

[Tim Hartford]

So. But if someone's gonna take him down, it seems like it's gonna have to come from the outside.

[Cait Lister]

Morris Fishbein was the man that made it his mission to take Brinkley down.

[Tim Hartford]

So if Brinkley's gonna be taken down, it's not gonna come from the local community. It's gonna come from outside, from some kind of authorities. So do the authorities do anything?

[Cait Lister]

They do. Eventually. I mean, they have to get involved. Cause he's practicing medicine without a license. He's operating on people with no qualifications or reason to do this at all. So eventually that's apparently frowned upon, is it? It is frowned upon. Even in 1930s, it's caused for people to have a think about it. So in 1930, he was called before the Kansas Medical board to face 11 charges. It's a fairly cut and dried case, isn't it? It's like, can you show us your medical certificate? And then he's just holding up a piece of paper with doctor written in crayon on it, like, what? So he's desperately trying to convince them that he's a doctor because he's got this junk medical certificate.

[Tim Hartford]

So when the Kansas Medical Board looked into his qualifications, I mean, what sort of investigation did they do?

[Cait Lister]

They did a pretty thorough investigation, actually, which in an act of. It's not even confidence, it's just lunacy. But this is how much of a charlatan he was. He actually invited members of the medical board to come and watch him do one of his procedures.

[Tim Hartford]

And they came.

[Cait Lister]

And they came. Of course they came. They were like, I mean, what. Just to have a wander around in that head of like, what did you think was gonna happen? Obviously they come in and they watch it. And they watch him botching this thing and unsterilized equipment. And it's just.

[Tim Hartford]

And also, you're literally just putting goat balls.

[Cait Lister]

You're just putting goat balls into somebody. That's what you're doing here. And then stitching it up and patting them on the back and saying, off you go. It's worth saying as well here that the boy goats survived, but the girl goats that he took ovaries out of to graft into women did not. So it wasn't good for the goats either.

[Tim Hartford]

Will no one think of the goats?

[Cait Lister]

No, just somebody. Justice for the goats. That's all that I'm saying. They often get left out of this particular story. So representatives come down and they watch him literally sewing a goat testicle into a human being. At which point he's like, ta da. And is genuinely shocked that they go, holy. And they revoke, no more for you. No, you are done.

[Tim Hartford]

I see that his license to practice was revoked. On the grounds of gross immorality and unprofessional conduct.

[Cait Lister]

Yes. You can't get much firmer than that, can you?

[Tim Hartford]

No, you can't. Okay. He's lost his license to practice medicine. Potentially a disaster. Although I struggle to understand how he ever had a license to practice medicine in the first place.

[Cait Lister]

I've wondered that as well. He can't have had a license to practice medicine anyway.

[Tim Hartford]

The authorities, like, you're not a doctor.

[Cait Lister]

You're not having one.

[Tim Hartford]

Stop doing this. He's still got the radio, though. He's still got that potential cash cow.

[Cait Lister]

He does. And it's a big cash cow as well. And he's still got his Dr. Brinkley show on the road and he's still offering up medical advice and people are still writing in and he's still peddling his quack cures. And it's all right for a while. But our mate Maurice Fishbein hasn't forgotten about him. And the pressure is now coming on the Kansas authorities to investigate whether it is ethical or not to have a disbarred lunatic offering up medical advice.

[Tim Hartford]

Yes, and the Federal Radio Commission get involved in the end. Spoil sports.

[Cait Lister]

Spoil sports. But again, that's exactly what he is doing. He isn't a medically qualified doctor. The advice that he's given up is just gibberish. And he's administering care to actual sick people. They're writing in with things that really are wrong with them. And he's.

[Tim Hartford]

And he's got no idea what he's talking about.

[Cait Lister]

Not a clue.

[Tim Hartford]

Not a clue.

[Cait Lister]

So eventually they have to pull the plug on it. And no more surgery and no more radio for you.

[Kate Lister]

I'll be back with Tim and John and his goats after this short break.

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[Tim Hartford]

Bombas are so absurdly comfortable you may throw out all your other clothes.

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[Tim Hartford]

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[Tim Hartford]

To feel good and do good, go to bombas.com acast and use code acast for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-S.com acast and use code Acast at checkout. So things are not looking good for Dr. John R. Brinkley. Because he's not a doctor anymore.

[Cait Lister]

He's not.

[Tim Hartford]

And neither is he a DJ anymore. He's lost his radio show. Surely, though, this can't be the end. This man is a master of reinvention. What's he gonna do?

[Cait Lister]

If it was any other normal human being, you'd just give up, wouldn't you? You'd be. I've been shamed on a national level here. I've been exposed as the worst kind of charlatan. But not Brinkley. He decides politics. That's the place for me. That's what I will do.

[Tim Hartford]

Who would have thought that a failed con man would be attracted by politics?

[Cait Lister]

It was the olden days, Tim. We'll never see the like again. So he runs 20th twice to be the governor of Kansas.

[Tim Hartford]

That's a big job.

[Cait Lister]

It's a big job.

[Tim Hartford]

He's not just running for mayor. Okay, Governor of Kansas.

[Cait Lister]

As we've discovered, not being remotely qualified for a position is no obstacle to Brinkley. He just can do attitude.

[Tim Hartford]

And so he's got all the stars of his KFKB radio station who can kind of shill for him and support him. And how does it go? I mean, is he crushed?

[Cait Lister]

Not nearly as epically as you would hope that he would be. In fact, the first time he does this, it's a reasonably close. I think eventually he came in third, I think. But there was a law that said if the votes that are cast don't specifically match the name that he's running under, they will be discounted. So they had this rule in place where if the vote didn't match exactly what had been submitted, which was John R. Brinkley, then the vote would be discounted. So if anyone wrote something like Doc Brinkley, it would just be thrown out immediately. And it has been suggested that if that hadn't happened, he might have taken it. Right.

[Tim Hartford]

I mean, I'm not that sad that he didn't become governor of Kansas, but at the same time, that doesn't actually seem that fair. I mean, if someone.

[Cait Lister]

It's tough, isn't it?

[Tim Hartford]

If someone writes down Doc Brinkley, it's Pretty obvious who they meant. But anyway, so he doesn't win in 1930 because of all those votes for Doc Brinkley and John Brinkley. And anyway, he doesn't get in. He nearly makes it. He tries again in 1932, loses again. Can't be it for Brinkley.

[Cait Lister]

Well, the second time that he ran, it did even more damage to his public image because his opponents realized that they could make a mockery of him, and they did. They held him up as just this crank, the goatball guy. Goatball guy who's been disbarred and discredited and da da da da. So it created evil.

[Tim Hartford]

I think that would have done more damage earlier, but okay, eventually they figure out that's an attack line.

[Cait Lister]

Eventually. So he upsticks and he moves to Del Rio, Texas, which is way down there on the border, where he tries again to practice medicine. Only this time he takes an increased interest in people's prostate glands. He's not monkey testically. Goat testically anymore. He's all behind him. Why do I.

[Tim Hartford]

Why do I think that's worse? Somehow I think that's even worse.

[Cait Lister]

But okay, I don't think that he's injecting or grafting anything into anybody, but he's certainly examining people. And this is like a world of suppositories. And it's all nonsense. And again, it's the same thing. It's that, oh, it's manly. It'll rejuvenate you. Da da da da da. He gets another radio show. Another radio show, Another radio show. Which again proves to be incredibly popular and again, is his downfall, because he can't just go somewhere and shut up and do his weird prostate thing. He has to broadcast it. So again, he attracts attention.

[Tim Hartford]

But the border is important there, right? Because he can put the radio transmitter in Mexico.

[Cait Lister]

Yeah. So he gets around the American authorities that way because he's not allowed to do it in America, but from Mexico, even though they can hear it in America.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. So he's got. I think they called it a border blaster. So he's got this massive radio mast near his home, but it's in Mexico, and therefore he's immune to American regulation.

[Cait Lister]

Nice trick. This show is broadcast across the States. You could pick it up in every single one of the States. It was that powerful.

[Tim Hartford]

But there must have been a problem. Now, surely if a patient goes to Brinkley and it doesn't work, they are gonna be less shy about complaining. Surely.

[Cait Lister]

Yeah, I'm sure that they were. But these things happen. Don't they when people are exposed as charlatans and quacks or as bad people is you do get the hardcore die hard fans, the ride or die people who just refuse to believe anything bad about them at all.

[Tim Hartford]

So he resurrects his career, if indeed it ever really went away. By 1938 he's got another hospital in Arkansas.

[Cait Lister]

Yep.

[Tim Hartford]

He's living the high life. He's got mansions, he's got yachts, Cadillacs, luxury holidays. Nothing can go wrong for Doc Brinkley.

[Cait Lister]

Yeah, but Maurice Fishburne hadn't forgotten about him.

[Tim Hartford]

Oh right. His old nemesis.

[Cait Lister]

His old nemesis. And of course, because Brinkley can't keep quiet and stay off the radar, Fishbein is just like, right, I'll have you. And he publishes a number of exposes calling him a quack and a charlatan. And Brinkley, to defend himself against this, decides that he's gonna sue him for libel.

[Tim Hartford]

Bold move.

[Cait Lister]

Don't do it. If what the person is saying is perfectly true.

[Tim Hartford]

Because it all then gets laid out in court, presumably. All of it.

[Cait Lister]

All of it gets laid out in court. The monkey, goat glands, the unsterilized equipment, the operating while drunk, the fact that 42 people that we know of died from these awful operations because of infection and God knows what else. And how many goats died. Justice for the goats.

[Tim Hartford]

I think we're probably gonna leave with the 42 people dying. That's my suggestion. But yes, but that's not good for Brinkley.

[Cait Lister]

None of it's good for Brinkley. It all gets laid out. Obviously the court finds in Fishbein's favour.

[Tim Hartford]

I love the jury verdict is that Brinkley should be considered a charlatan and a quack in the ordinary, well understood meaning of those words.

[Cait Lister]

Mike dropped.

[Tim Hartford]

Perfect. So he loses the case, he gets sued and then bad day at the office. The IRS sue him for tax fraud.

[Cait Lister]

Yeah. Cause he wasn't paying his taxes. Of course he wasn't.

[Tim Hartford]

Who would have thought?

[Cait Lister]

Who would have thought?

[Tim Hartford]

And then the post office sue him for mail fraud.

[Blue Nile Ad]

Yep.

[Cait Lister]

It's like shark circling, isn't it? And like once somebody's made the first bite is they're all going in.

[Tim Hartford]

Right. So this is the end of the 1930s. It sounds like it's basically the end for Brinkley's career.

[Cait Lister]

Pretty much all avenues have been cut off to him. He kind of limps along for a little bit, muttering about the injustice of it and about trying to resurrect some kind of nonsense career. So he dies only four years after this his health is worsening the whole time, and he has a series of heart attacks. Dies alone, penniless and in disgrace.

[Tim Hartford]

Kate, this has been a joy. Whenever we have one of our cautionary conversations, I always try to reflect, always want to learn the lessons from history. So one lesson I learned is that I'm not going to have goat testicles implanted in my scrotum.

[Cait Lister]

A wise move.

[Tim Hartford]

But who knows? Maybe there are even broader lessons to draw. What do you take from all this?

[Cait Lister]

I think there are lots of lessons from this for the modern world, because medical quackery is still very much with us. There's still people out there peddling all manner of lotions and potions and pills and powders, claiming to do this, that and the other, and it doesn't do anything of the sort. And I think check your credentials as well, is like, look into the background of the person that's selling you something. Just because they put on a good show doesn't mean that they absolutely know what they're talking about.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah. I mean, it is amazing how much gets sold basically by influencers now. It's on YouTube, it's on TikTok. And actually the main reason why people buy it is because, well, they like the influencer. They find them impressive, they think they're cool and that's enough. And actually, quite often that probably is enough, but not necessarily. Certainly not when it gets to the goat glands.

[Cait Lister]

No. Like, if you're talking about a face cream or, you know, protein powders or various teas, I guess. No, you should never tell lies. And it's not good when people are overselling stuff, but at least that's not gonna cause irreparable damage.

[Tim Hartford]

Yeah, well, I mean, I suppose it depends what's in the face cream or the protein powders.

[Cait Lister]

We should just be a bit firm with that and just say, no, we shouldn't be selling nonsense to people. No, what it does.

[Tim Hartford]

All in favor of actual evidence.

[Cait Lister]

Evidence.

[Tim Hartford]

Kate, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining me. What should we call this? I mean, betwixt the cautionary, Cautionary tales, something. Kate Lister, thank you so much.

[Cait Lister]

Thank you.

[Kate Lister]

Thank you for listening. And thank you so much to Tim for having me. And don't forget to check out his amazing podcast, Cautionary Tales. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to, like, review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts. If you want us to explore a subject or maybe you just wanted to say hi, then you can email [e-mail] Coming up, we've got episodes on Valentine's Day in ancient Rome and the Dark History of the Body Mass Index. This podcast was edited by Tom Delaghi and produced by Stuart Beckman with Charlotte Long and Marilyn Rust. Join me again Betwixt the Sheets the History of Sex Scandal in Society, A podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

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[Tim Hartford]

But some opinions are more useful than others. And we all want the good ones.

[Cait Lister]

The ones that shake the things up.

[Tim Hartford]

Spark debates, and change minds. Financial Times readers know that their opinions are reliable because they're shaped by trusted journalism. Robust opinions, confident decisions. Source FT to subscribe, go to ft.comsourceft.