Episode 687: John Brinkley Part II - Solace in Strange Directions

there's no place to escape to this is the last on the left that's when the cannibalism started so i don't know why but i guess it's because you know i've been showing carolina at last lately we've been watching lost together and so a couple nights ago i had this dream where i was um i was talking with miley cyrus i was interviewing miley cyrus and for some reason she had an australian accent and she kept talking about how she had two boyfriends but she kept using this phrase that and i want to know if this is real or if this is just something that my brain made up but she kept saying yeah i got two blades on the cougar i've never heard two blades on the cougar no i've never heard that i so it's not okay i've never heard that as an expression but i will say you're always writing you know she was famously engaged to liam hensworth the australian so i see where your brain made that connection she also to me reads australian yes she does read australia and two blades on the cougar that does sound like something an australian woman would say who's getting railed by two men oh definitely absolutely it's like one like there's a term i learned recently that was like get one up yeah yeah oh yeah that's like that yeah it's kind of like that you get one up you is both a drink and i believe a cock i think yeah i think it's getting fucked it's both but it's also australian so it's like both get one up there what if you're on top but i'm gonna start saying two blades on the cougar yeah two blades on the on the cougar yeah yeah two blades on the cougar yeah and what's that mean double team and a lady no it just means that you get two guys the you're a lady that's uh that's got two guys on the line i got two blades on the cougar oh okay yeah two blades on the cougar oh okay yeah two blades on the cougar oh okay yeah two blades on the cougar two guys at one time double team no that's called koala belly kiss on the left ladies and gentlemen thank you for letting me share my dream with you my name is marcus parks i'm here with uh henry zebrowski the they call him the australian um uh the australian armadillo that yep actually yeah yeah it actually kind of works yeah it does doesn't it yeah because i have a wider back than a front yeah which is just the truth i have a wide back my back's getting wider it is and you're rolling a ball to get from place to place yes that is because it's fastest for me because of my little legs my little segmented legs and my three-toed paws yeah they go up into your body yes just like my penis thank you and uh we've got also with us ed larson who i'm gonna call the honduran hedgehog whoa oh god that seems like it's uh you know i'm just visiting just feels like like a big like the ron jeremy of south america yeah and today we are continuing and finishing the story of john brinkley the goat gland man this is huge it's thick it's long but goddamn i love this story it's so fun i watched a little bit of the documentary nuts did you see that no no documentary it's called about him called nuts nuts with an exclamation point and it's all done with a guy like animation it's really fun go take a look it really helps pad out the world of it yeah well we last left dr john brinkley he had established his growing goat gland empire in the tiny kansas town of milford where a clientele made up mostly of impotent men would travel from all over the world so the good doctor could implant the testicles of baby goats into their scrotums in a bid to recapture their vim and vigor i think this constant traveling of impotent men is what led to the creation of the delta lounge yeah ironically they're all riding the train but while this all sounds objectively idiotic if not outright insane dr brinkley was not the only medical professional in the early 20th century who would erroneously come to believe that human maladies could be treated or cured by tossing a chunk of animal organ into the body cavity of a patient also i'm gonna say right up top that this episode has a ton of characters because as it turns out john brinkley came into contact with a lot of people who were in contact with a lot of people who were in contact with a lot of people of absolutely fascinating people throughout his career so we're gonna do our absolute best to keep everything straight throughout i'm gonna say a weird statement here but does anybody feel that from like more interesting people were alive at once from like 1910 to 1930 than any other like time period like the idea of like more interesting people more weird you know i think it's during any time of discovery yeah like any time like when things are going wrong and i think it's during any time of discovery yeah like when things are going wrong and i think it's during any time of discovery right now we're in the goo as c to put it on my last appearance on the foreign report we're deep in the we're deep in the goo right now so it there's not a whole lot of interesting people around but during you know 1910s 1920s i mean so many interesting things and there's so many people that are just trying whatever uh and are making a career out of it yeah back then we didn't know shit about shit yeah yeah and now we know no shit about shit yeah you you would think that we know nothing now concerning the early 20th century explosion of xenotransplantation that's the technical word for implanting organs from one species into another there were a fair amount of men throughout the western world who had the same idea as dr brinkley by the 1920s though a lot of the action was happening in europe in paris a doctor named serge voronoff continued the work of dr charlie brown secret charlie brown was the guy we discussed last episode who continued the work of dr charlie brown secret charlie brown was the claim to have cured his own impotence by injecting himself with an emulsion of dog and guinea pig testicles directly into his own sexual organs i'm buying it i actually think that that's what i'm looking for and i wonder if he direct because all i could read was all i could find was that he injected it into his sexual organ so i don't know if he injected it into his penis or his balls if i was him and i'm not but if i was him and i know that this is fake yeah and i'm trying to show five people by this but you believe it's real well i i would believe up to a point but in order to hedge that i would just stick it into the extra skin of the balls yeah okay that's good it's interesting that his name is charlie brown and he was working with peanuts charlie brown dr serge voronoff picked up where dr brown secret left off by transplanting various testicles between animals and from animals into humans just to see what would happen now for the most part full xenotransplantation is still fringe science we of course use porcine valves to repair hearts but patients still usually die within days when it comes to full pig heart transplant 60 days was recently we had one for 60 days wow honestly if i'm gonna die in two if i'm dying anyway like i get you two months with a pig heart it's not like it's two months ago to disney world and jet skiing you get cut in half they put the pig heart in you you then spend too much going but i want to watch the sopranos one more time well the most promising xenotransplants involve chimpanzee and pig kidneys but even those are still a long ways away from being reliable for example the record for the longest a pig kidney has lasted in a human is still as of 2025 only 271 days and that was after extensive gene editing in other words biology is not really a mix and match sort of thing when it comes to internal organs although as we shall see many men over the years tried and failed although many tried and believed they succeeded but still failed i would love some pig skin yeah chicharron me yeah that's it that's what you wanted you're talking about chicharron i want to turn into pizza the hut you are well on your way it's delicious i feel like that's a celebrity you most resemble in october of 1919 an american doctor made a supposed breakthrough in the field of gland implantation his name was dr leo stanley and he had made his so-called breakthrough in the unlikeliest of places san quentin state prison right here in california that doesn't sound great no it's about to get real bad i'm definitely terrified as you might expect from a prison doctor performing experiments on prisoners dr leo stanley was pure evil and while his experiments weren't quite on the level of say what joseph mengela did at the birkenau concentration camp 30 years later that's good yeah dr stanley he was still playing the same game as mengela i look up to him who do i want to be when i grow up one of the most notorious nazis of all time point is though men like dr stanley were the contemporaries of dr john brinkley and his goat gland surgery brinkley took cues from men like stanley all while the unsuspecting public paid the price now dr stanley had been hired as chief surgeon for san quentin state prison in 1913 but the problem is that while dr stanley was a doctor he had absolutely no surgical experience like you need many many years of training to become a surgeon you don't just go from medical school to - You know, if no one's gonna let you do it, how are you gonna get the experience? - Exactly, it's like being a barber. Bartender in Brooklyn. They want you to have experience to get experience. Bartending school is a scam. But regardless of his training, Stanley had come to believe that endocrine diseases, particularly problems with men's testicles, were the main cause of crime. He wrote poetically in his memoir that perhaps the outworn glands look for solace in strange directions. I know when my balls are sad, the first thing they look towards is the ultimate ball. The sun. Ah, how they wish they could be the sun. I always wondered, how did the writers of Deadwood write in that style? They're just copying guys like this. That sounds like the preacher from the first season of Deadwood. Perhaps his outworn glands look for solace in friendship. Oh, hell yeah. But the thing about California at this time, in the early 1900s, is that there was little to no legal protections regarding prisoners. So Dr. Stanley had near Nazi-level authority to experiment on prisoners in whatever way he saw fit. Let's see if we can make him have duck feet. Well, to test his theories on testicles and crime, Dr. Stanley removed the testicles from an. executed criminal who presumably had no next of kin. Or, most likely, the next of kin was just never informed that, hey, we're cutting out your brother's testicles after we hang him. Honestly, I just think, like, don't let me know. Yeah. Oh, so I was like, electrocuted him. It's like, how did that even work? They must have cooked the nuts, but they hung him. That makes sense. I think they were still doing hanging in 1913 in San Quentin. Yeah, why not? Yeah. Hopefully. Well, the testicles of that dead man were implanted into the scrotum, of an elderly inmate. This was all to see if swapping out testicles could make a difference in an inmate's demeanor and or sex drive. I bet it would. Well, after the first operation was deemed successful enough, Dr. Stanley was given permission to remove the testicles from every executed inmate, which were then implanted into the scrotums of San Quentin's elderly inmates. I think if you pin an elderly inmate down and you saw open his balls and you put a dead man's balls inside of him, it might calm him. And then you might make him think about his ways. Hey there, son. What day are they going to kill you? Nice set on you there, boy. Let me ask. Let me ask. Are you part Rottweiler? What day is this young buck here going to go down? I just got to see the big smiling elderly inmate now with four balls. Just like walk moseying down being like, you notice something different about me? Double set. I got the double. Now, boys, unfortunately, we have to have a new policy here. Ain't no more calling dibs on testicles. There's too many fights amongst you to get the good testicles. Everybody, everybody's just looking at me for what I got on the outside. Nobody can ask questions about Mongo. Nobody ask question about me history. Dead man. Dead man. Dead man walking. After these initial experiments, Stanley claimed that within five days, each elderly inmate showed improvement and he, quote, perked up. The results were encouraging. But for as many men as the officials at San Quentin executed, they still didn't produce enough testicles to satisfy Dr. Stanley's appetite for discovery. So Dr. Stanley began implanting the testicles from various animals, including boars, rams, deer, and, of course, goats. Stanley eventually came to believe that gland implants could cure depression, acne, asthma, and even pedophilia. As if the only reason why certain men were attracted to children was because they had bad testicles. We removed them balls. He don't want to fuck no kids at all. Yeah, we just took the balls and we put them on top. The key is to put the balls above the dick. That's what keeps them from having sex with the children. The best way to do it, I found, is you remove their eyeballs and you put the testicles. And when the eyeballs are, they can't see nothing. This is my best student. He is simply, I, God, I wish he was my daughter. And I tested it, too. I got an old orphan boy. I locked him in a room with old Jake for nine, six hours. Wasn't no touching. Well, it's because no one told me the boy was going to be gross. I'm trying to lose weight. Dr. Stanley then went even further. He removed the thyroid glands from troublesome inmates. And all this, by the way, is without the prisoner's consent. He injected the ground-up testicles of animals directly into the abdomens of other prisoners, just to see what it would do. With other inmates, Dr. Stanley performed primitive plastic surgery, theorizing that these men would be less likely to commit crimes if only they hadn't been so goddamned ugly. If they were more handsome and less aggressive, physically off-putting, Dr. Stanley theorized, they would be able to find work outside of prison. And they would therefore become productive members of society. Absolutely. I've been saying this for a long time. Ugly people are criminals. And I wish that we could fix each one. He is completely correct. Absolutely. Hair lips. I'm not even checking the fucking data on this. Hair lips lead to murder. The idea is make them pull out the lip. Flip it in with a new lip section, man. Yeah. Well, the point, talking about all this, all of Dr. Stanley's experiments, is that contemporary reports of Dr. Stanley's methods were almost universally praised, which certainly helped other mad scientists of the time, like Dr. John Brinkley, the goat gland man. In 1919, Dr. Stanley was recognized as an international figure in the surgical world, whose operations, transplanting the testicles of condemned murderers into elderly inmates, was seen. as groundbreaking medicine. The only pushback Dr. Stanley got was from the family of one condemned inmate, who found out that Stanley had removed their family member's testicles after his execution, without his or their consent. We loved his balls! Hold on, you're saying I don't get to keep them? That was my inheritance! That was my legacy! My daddy's balls are not for you! Well, they sued Dr. Stanley for mutilation of a corpse, but Stanley was not convicted, quite the opposite. He continued his work, and by 1940, Dr. Stanley had performed over 10,000 testicular implants within the walls of San Quentin State Prison. That's like a gigantic, like, medical crime, right? Like, would you not call that, like, the mutilation of a generation of men? It's a massive, massive story, yeah. I mean, 10,000 operations, in the span of 30 years, that's like how many people went to San Quentin? I mean, a lot of people. A lot of people went to San Quentin. And they all had bad attitudes. Every one of them needed an extra set of balls. That is, um, it seems like almost everyone got an operation. You would think so, but, you know, it was probably a drop in the bucket as far as the people coming in on San Quentin go. I mean, it is a staggering number, though. I mean, if it's even, like, say I'm wrong, and it's half that, that's still a lot. Yeah. It's like what it says right now. It's designed to hold at max 4,000. Yeah. Like, I mean, say I'm totally wrong, and it's a tenth of that. That's still a thousand. It's still a lot. I mean, four is worth talking about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even if you just did it to one guy. Even if it's just one time, it's a big story, you know? Dr. Leo Stanley's testicular experiments were a huge inspiration to the leading xenotron. The term Dr. Leo Stanley's testicular experiments sounds like a Terry Gilliam movie that was canceled. Let's continue. I'm sorry. I would have got that movie made if it wasn't beaten America, goddammit. I hate America so much. That godforsaken, lazy, and sick Heath Ledger. He ruined my ability to make films about time-traveling harlequins. Well, Dr. Leo Stanley's testicular experiments were a huge inspiration to the leading xenotransplantation. The aforementioned Dr. Serge Voronov. Voronov, however, didn't have the access to human testicles that Dr. Stanley had, so he figured he'd use the next best thing. Voronov began mutilating and castrating chimpanzees, claiming without evidence that the glands of a chimp were superior to human glands because chimp glands were absent of the defects with which mankind is afflicted. From my reading, this was Voronov finding a roundabout way to insert the concept of original sin. I believe him. God, it's gotta be so hard to wrestle these chimpanzees down in order to get their balls out. Just give him some bananas. I will not have a banana! In his most successful surgery, Voronov claimed that he had implanted the thyroid glands of a chimp into a teenager that Voronov had diagnosed as a clinical idiot. After the operation, though, Voronov judged the idiot to have been upgraded to a normal, and the teen was even found fit to serve. in the French army. Yes, this idiot is now ready to die for our country Now get out of here Absolutely, pack with testicles, little idiot Excellent, your singing voice has gotten better And so, Voronov kept implanting chimp glands into human men And he eventually began claiming that implanting the glands of a chimp Could extend a man's lifespan to no less than 150 years Ask these several corpses Now by 1921, Voronov's chimp gland implant procedure was so popular That he was charging the modern equivalent of $60,000 a go Fuck yeah And by the way, I'm going to be using the modern equivalent a lot Because there's so much money involved here That I really want people to get a sense Of how much money was involved I do appreciate that Yes, well, this caused a rush on the chimpanzee testicle market Oh man, bad time to be a fucking chimp with balls, man Just being like, have you all noticed? Shit's getting tense I've started to tuck You're brave, you're brave And that first time it was done, it was done in June Which is really lovely Therefore, the black market for poached chimp nuts exploded Causing the price for a chimp gland implant To rise 600% From $2 to $1,200 Because there was money here Other doctors jumped on the chimp boat With some offering a luxury experience Oh, that's the stuff like Jeff Dye does Yeah, who's Jeff Dye? Like the comedian Like when you guys go get your hair transplants Oh yeah One doctor charged the modern equivalent of nearly $100,000 For chimp glands that were implanted into the body While wrapped in silk Which is a very, very bad idea For a multitude of reasons Yeah, you don't put silk in your body You don't put cloth in your body Yeah, last I checked I'm not a fucking bureau But what this tells us Is that the field of sexual rejuvenation surgery Was huge business by the 1920s It's estimated that in the United States alone There were 750 doctors Offering gland transplant operations By 1920 By 1924 But few were getting more attention Than the goat gland man Dr. John Brinkley Dude, do you know that chimp testicles Are five times larger than humans' testicles? Human testicles relative to other mammals Our testicles are actually very small So they're jam-packing these testicles in there? No, it's just like the The slivers It's slivers Oh, I thought they were putting the whole fucking apple in there No, no You can't waste a whole chimp on some fucking jerk-off No, you cut his balls off And then you cut his balls off And then you take the scoop The ball meat out And then I just thought they were jamming That whole fucking blind spaghetti No, remember I said last episode Usually they were using the testicles from the young ones Very, very young ones Yes, I didn't understand Yes, I was just looking at chimp balls And God, they're big Yeah, they're huge They think of it as like a sliced peach Yeah Yeah That's horrific Well, the way I I read a really good comparison One of the authors of our sources Said it's like slicing a bit of a Like garlic off a clove Okay Just slicing it off a clove Just See, I always thought balls were like calamaris Nah Let's continue What do you mean? Like little legs at the bottom? No, no, no I just like fried little circles You know, I will say Last time I was playing with my balls earlier And there's like a A clump of veins in there It's the It's the Vos Defrons Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah Don't touch that We're actually gonna get into the Vos Defrons earlier Those are the The cum tubes Those are the Yeah, the Thank you The deliver The cum Out of your penis From the balls Oh, that explains why Yeah, it's the cum highway The pony express Yeah, you didn't pinch it, did you? I did And it hurt, or it didn't Yeah, yeah, yeah That's what I'm saying God, help me God, you made it this long You made it this far I got another one Fly from your grave And so now, let's get Really into the story of Dr. Brinkley Now, while Brinkley had been advertising his successes With goat glands throughout the 1910s He got a boost in profile in 1921 When he performed the surgery on an author Named Dr. Sidney Blanchard Flower Who had come to Dr. Brinkley After losing access to both his creative and sexual juices Dr. Flower was actually a bit of a charlatan himself Having written a book in 1901 Called The Perfect Course of Instruction in Hypnotism Mesmerism and Clairvoyance But after Brinkley tossed a few slivers of goat testicles Into Dr. Flower's sack Dr. Flower claimed that he was so invigorated That he wrote two new books In just 15 days And I'd imagine they were both fantastic Yeah, no errors None, absolutely Just take a knife to my balls Make me ready But more importantly Dr. Flower also wrote a 96-page booklet About the goat gland procedure itself Which was meant to instruct European doctors On how to perform the operation It was basically promo The booklet praised Brinkley as a genius And its publication only served to grow Brinkley's reputation As a leading voice in gland implantation surgery Do you think that Brinkley probably paid him To say that and write all that And he never actually got the surgery? No, I think he got the surgery But he probably did pay him as well I still think that these guys are all Everybody is holding these different things together By all saying it worked Because no one wants to admit I went to the doctor And had someone throw a bunch of chunks of gold testicle Inside my testicular sack And now I'm just in pain I'm just pussing out of my bottle Yeah, no one wants to admit that And it's happening a lot As we'll get into Now in 1922, word of Brinkley's procedure Had traveled from his humble homemade hospital In Milford, Kansas All the way to sunny Los Angeles Where it caught the attention of the public And the attention of one of the most influential men In the history of this city That man who would bring Brinkley To Los Angeles himself Was Harry Chandler Now in 1922 Harry Chandler was the owner Of the Los Angeles Times But he was also involved And this is just throughout his life He was involved in the development of the Hollywood Bowl The Los Angeles Coliseum The Hollywood sign Mulholland Drive These are just a few of the dozens upon dozens Of landmarks And projects here in Los Angeles That bear Chandler's influence Accordingly, Chandler Boulevard One of the main arteries of the San Fernando Valley It was named after Harry Chandler But while Chandler was arguably The leading citizen of Los Angeles In the early to mid-20th century The man is easily on the level of William Mulholland Chandler had a dark side As these men often do What? Marcus, you put the man who geeked me To Hollywood sign He's gotta be a nice man A guy who says Hollywood on it Man, California used to be scary as fuck God, it was This It's weird How fucking Like just how insane and corrupt Los Angeles Like Los Angeles is so corrupt It's boring We came up Well, just like Vegas in a way Because we were literally We're not supposed to be here, man Nope Yeah, it was like criminals That normally would have gotten run off By the mob came out here Well, because the mob then Filtrated Filtered their money from the East Coast Into creating the film industry Yeah Well, if it tells you anything Harry Chandler was the inspiration For Noah Cross The villain in Chinatown So expertly portrayed by John Huston One of the greatest movie villains of all time Do you ever see that scene That Jack Nicholson talks about how So there's the scene in the movie Where John Huston talks with him About fucking his daughter And Jack Nicholson was fucking John Huston's daughter Yeah, Angelica Huston Angelica Huston, yeah And he was like talking about this scene Where he was like mulling it over In his head being like Do I tell him or not? And then eventually he was like So frightened by John Huston And he's like I'm just gonna let it be in the scene I love it Well, besides Chandler's general evil vibe He was also a massive and vocal proponent Of eugenics Which was, of course, hugely inspirational To the final solution Implemented by the Nazis And I do believe he had a bit of incest In his family as well That's a part of it Is I do believe he had a bit of incest I do believe he was fucking his daughter Gotcha John Huston? No, this guy Oh, okay Yeah, yeah, yeah No, no, no, no Chandler But perhaps because eugenics Was also a new fringe science That depended a lot on grand proclamations That had no real evidence to back them up Eugenics was quite popular Amongst the doctors In the gland implantation community Dr. Leo Stanley In San Quentin State Prison, for example Was a committed eugenicist Who sterilized hundreds of prisoners Against their will And it wasn't just like Oh, this person's a problem Let's sterilize him He would just see someone like Oh, that man's a homosexual Sterilize him That man's bisexual Sterilize him And it was all at his discretion And this was totally legal in California California was one of 32 states in America During this time period Who actually legislated eugenic policies All to keep the so-called undesirables From breeding more undesirables And this is decades before the Nazis took power So you're saying you're having a problem with scientific curiosity. I'm fucking believable. Harry Chandler was a prominent member of a eugenics organization out of Pasadena insidiously called the Human Betterment Foundation. And he used the Los Angeles Times to endorse eugenics policies throughout his reign as the paper's owner, from 1917 all the way until his death in 1944. But since the surgeons implanting animal glands into humans and the rapidly growing number of dedicated eugenicists in America had a lot in common, Harry Chandler had read about Dr. John Brinkley's successes with goat glands. Now, Harry Chandler was presumably struggling with impotence, or he was at the very least looking for a boost to his virility, because he brought Brinkley out to Los Angeles to perform the goat gland operation on not only himself, but also. a few of his editors at the Los Angeles Times. And I don't know if those men got that surgery voluntarily. He may have made them do it. Hey, you know, you want to keep a job. Honestly, I was just really proud of Rob that we went together and got penis transplant surgery back and forth. We both took an inch away. As a way, just in solidarity, and it was one of the, to be honest, one of the best working moments I've ever had as a professional CEO of a podcast. It's good to have Rob there to make sure all your plumbing's still working. Oh, got it, make sure. No reason why I'd leave, can't leave not knowing if it works. So, next time you drive down Chandler Boulevard here in the Valley, remember that the man for whom that street is named actively brought Dr. John Brinkley to Los Angeles so Brinkley could open up Chandler's scrotum to toss a few slivers of goat testicles into his evil, shriveled-up little sack. Come here, Henderson, come here, let me see. You said you're going to get me a new weather report for this weekend. Mm-hmm. Let me take a look at this. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry, Mr. Chandler. It's going to rain, and I know it's your birthday. Sounds like somebody needs some goat balls inside. Go to my boat, my boat. My goat ball, my hand. You know what your balls need, Mr. Chandler? A bike path. How dare you? Right down the middle. I will, I dare you. I will not allow a trolley system to be built in my house. Now, John Brinkley did not have a license to practice medicine in California. This was back in the days where you had to get a medical license state by state. So Harry Chandler used his power and influence to get the California State Medical Board to grant Brinkley a 30-day license. Chandler was the first to get the operation. But after word spread, Brinkley also operated on a number of unnamed silent movie stars. But while we don't know who those goat-glanded stars were, we do know that Brinkley was the first to get the operation. And we do know that Brinkley's procedure was talked about enough around Hollywood to inspire Buster Keaton to include a goat-gland gag in his short comedic film, Cops, filmed in 1922. Gland boys, gland boys, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come on you? Wow, very good. Well, the gag in Cops involved Keaton taking his horse to a goat-gland specialist to reinvigorate the animal. And after the horse got the goat-gland implant, the horse is suddenly faster and more energetic. It's very funny. But weirdly, the scene was censored because talk of testicles was considered obscene in some markets. The scene was actually lost for decades, but was actually rediscovered in 1980. Now, comedians have been shitheads forever. That's what's really awesome. That's what's awesome about that, too. Because you know what that is in terms of if you're a comedy history nerd? Is that the first example of making fun of L.A. for its obsessions? Yeah, it's probably one of the first. It's probably one of the first. That's making fun of L.A. for plastic surgery, peptides, all the fucking shit. That's so funny. It's just always been this way. Do you think that the silent film stars that got the goat-gland surgery weren't able to be in the talkies because afterwards they spoke like this? That's not going to work at the talkies. Cut it from the record. That's not going to work. Cut it from the record, bro. My name is Charles Chaplin. Lose the voice. Do a dance with the biscuits. That's your favorite. That's your favorite film right there. Wear the hat. All right, now get the little boy. That's your little kid now, okay? Stop with the voice. Here's another bit of Hollywood trivia for you. Is that while Buster Keaton was filming this movie, it was right in the middle of Fatty Arbuckle's murder trial. What? Fuck yes. And the whole movie is like this sort of like Kafka-esque, you know, like he keeps getting arrested. He doesn't know what's going on. And they say that it was possibly like at the same time it was also maybe, inspired by Fatty Arbuckle's trial because the two of them were former collaborators. I really do want to do it someday. Yeah. It's a fascinating story. You know, I'd go through all of the stories inside of Hollywood Babylon. Yeah. Because they're fascinating. They're fascinating. They're not true. They're not true, but you can then go to what are the things that are true, which could be very interesting. Now, we don't know exactly how many operations Brinkley performed on Angelino's during those 30 days in California, but Brinkley performed the goat glam procedure on a sliding, scale. He charged anywhere between $500 for what he called the poor folks to $2,000. That was what he called the businessman package. That's actually very smart. It's pretty progressive. No, it's just, it's smart, man. It's getting balls in ya. Because it is getting as many customers as you can possibly get. And if you could not even afford the $500, Brinkley also sold a kind of do-it-yourself kit. Through mail order, a man could spend $100 on a special gland emulsion, which came with a rectal syringe. So the mystery liquid could be anally self-administered. Honestly, they're doing fine. You know what I mean? Just shooting some fucking saline up your butthole and getting some salt water from a guy and shooting up your butthole is definitely way less invasive. Yeah. I mean, it was probably just, I mean, considering how many times Brinkley did something like this, it was probably just water and food. Coloring. So these guys are just giving themselves enemas. But then they might have a clean butthole for the very first time in their lives. Because remember how I felt. Yeah. When I first fully cleaned my butthole, properly cleaned my butthole, it was like, I was like a little girl in a field. It was like I was Sidney Sweeney trying on underwear. Like, I felt incredible. I didn't know anally had two L's. Yeah, it does. Let's move on. But as far as Brinkley's surgeries during that first. That's going to help him in Scrabble. It really is. Yeah, he's been thinking about what's a good way to, you know, maximize his Scrabble scores. But as far as Brinkley's surgeries during that first trip out west went, Brinkley had made $40,000 by the end of those 30 days, which today translates to over $700,000. So he did a lot. That's my man. But Brinkley had. He also discovered that there was indeed gold in their glands. And the goat glands were only the beginning. I'm sorry. That made me laugh. Thank you. Well, if a patient had the modern equivalent of $200,000, Dr. Brinkley would implant human testicles into a patient. But unlike Dr. Stanley, Brinkley did not have executed prisoners from which he could harvest human testicles. Yeah. These testicles, however, still had to come from somewhere. So Brinkley inadvertently created a black market for human testicles, just as Dr. Voronoff had done with chimpanzees. This market was mostly fueled by desperate young men who were willing to sell their own testicles. But it was rumored that unwilling young men were kidnapped and castrated to feed Dr. Brinkley's testicle demand. Now, as far as we know, there were no criminal cases in which anyone was prosecuted for such a crime. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I would not, however, have expected those stolen testicles to arrive in good working order. No, ice wasn't very popular back then. So hard to get. So hard to get. You had to get those big pincers, you know, to get the big block. Just a kid showing up like, Hey, I've got a coffee can full of testicles. You're exactly who I wanted to see this morning. I love the idea, too, of I can see being young and just being like, just fucking take one. It's not even doing anything for me, man. Can I sell what? Just have it, man. And then also, you knock him out, you cut the ball out, he wakes up, he's like, oh my God, what happened? And then you know he's just carving off some money to the guy, just being like, all right, now get out of here, you single unit motherfucker. Yeah, he'll never know. Yeah. No. Yeah. No muss, no fuss. Right? Because if you get one ball removed, you still come the same amount of ropes. Totally fine, yeah. Not the same amount. I imagine it's less. Let us know if you still come the same amount, if one testicle. Now, the flurry of surgeries performed by Brinkley during his 30 days in Los Angeles drew the attention of the dreaded American Medical Association. The AMA, if you'll remember, had previously rejected Brinkley's paper about the benefits of goat gland implants on the grounds that his paper was utter quackery. This is like when you start to like root for, because technically the AMA is like the bad guys in the story, you know, in this wonderful story of John Brinkley, kind of how like the EPA is the villain in Ghostbusters. act like they're the villains when it's really technically they might actually be right. Yeah, I mean, the AMA, of course, has its own problems and histories with health insurance and such and such. But during this story, they're right. They're correct in this story. Well, as such, the AMA not only tried to get Brinkley's license revoked, they even tried to get him extradited back to California to face charges and fines related to the goat glam procedures. But thanks to Harry Chandler, Brinkley already had friends in high places. And when the AMA came after Brinkley for the first, but by no means the last time, none other than the governor of California himself stepped in on Brinkley's behalf to strike down the AMA's case. Now, after Brinkley conquered Los Angeles in just 30 days, he and his wife, Minnie, spent the next couple of years taking their show on the road. Together, John and Minnie performed goat gland surgeries in not just major cities around the United States, but in Mexico, China. Vietnam, Egypt, and a whole host of European countries. This is fantastic. I can't believe no one shot him in the head. Yeah, no, I can't believe it either. It's because I do believe the secret power is to do embarrassing things to people. And then they don't want to talk about what embarrassing thing they chose to do to themselves. Because I imagine once you realize that you've just got rotting flesh inside your balls, and you're sitting there, and once all goes away and it doesn't work anymore, you probably feel a bit sheepish. Yeah. And he's already out of town. Yeah, he's gone! He's already in Vietnam. You couldn't walk for those four weeks when you were getting really mad about it. Yeah. Interesting. Well, in Italy, Brinkley actually had a brief residency at the University of Pavia, so he could pay for a full-on medical degree that could not be argued against, unlike his more dubious degrees in America. That Pavia degree was invaluable, because it allowed Brinkley to basically obtain a medical license anywhere he went. I know that this is extremely ignorant, but. I know that this is extremely ignorant, and it's very, very even silly to say, but there's something about the idea of an Italian doctor that I don't trust for some reason. There's something about an Italian doctor, because I can just feel him in me like, "Eh, eh, smoke a cigarette!" You know what I mean? Like, "Eh, why don't you, uh, get the fuck out of here?" Like, I just feel like that's what he would do eventually. I have to fall down a flight of stairs in Italy to knowingly go to an Italian doctor. I'm. But I'm certain that they. I know it's a modern country, and they. Yeah. Yeah! That's all I'm saying, but you know, it's just something about a guy with a braid, a mustache, coming in, going, "Eh, your wife, eh, she's so beautiful!" Now, the AMA saw this as an extremely dangerous development, and it was. Like, it's. Yeah, 'cause it legitimated him. You made him legit. Yeah, it made him legit everywhere around the world. So, the AMA contacted Italian authorities in 1925 and appealed to none other than the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to get Brinkley's degree rescinded. Mussolini, of course, didn't give a shit about any of this, 'cause why the fuck are you bothering me? So, Brinkley kept his degree from the University of Pavia and never had to worry about credentials for the rest of his life. I'm an Italian doctor! He did, however, have to worry about the AMA, so he began to fight back. Once Brinkley returned to Milford, Kansas from his world tour, he eventually hired a preacher from the local Methodist church to denounce modern AMA-approved medicine as "ungodly." The minister naturally advocated for Brinkley's methods instead, which were more Christian than what the science worshipers at the AMA were peddling. Nothing is as Christian as a black market human testicle, like a black market human testicles, pinning a bunch of chips down and removing their balls and taking them out, popping them in there. Christ would have loved this. But God's men, you know, Earth is. man's domain. I get it. I know, I love it. I like foie gras. If you can't fucking buy off the government, there's always a priest. That's a good tip. As I said last episode, the only thing that gave men a boner after they got the goat glam surgery was the placebo effect. This was partly because Brinkley was able to talk a good game about the procedure itself. And specifically, Brinkley knew how to talk about it in a way that would appeal to Americans. Remember that Brinkley was able to talk a good game about the procedure itself. Brinkley came from Appalachia, rural America, and he knew how to explain his procedure to Americans in a homespun, folksy way that almost made him sound like something of a farmer. When asked exactly how the goat glam procedure worked, Brinkley said, "I suppose a goat glam is a good deal, like a potato. You can cut a potato all in pieces, and you plant it, and every eye will grow." So you're saying I'm going to have Irish balls? Yes. But we can reverse that. We can reverse the Irish balls disease. Yes, you heard it here first. Goat glands are like a starfish. Your balls, they always grow back. While Brinkley had this homespun charm, he was a master at balancing the potato talk with scientific jargon that all sounded very impressive. It's very L. Ron Hubbard. Yeah. For example, when Brinkley was in Italy, he finally gave his goat gland procedure a try. The goat gland procedure, a name that made it sound official and trustworthy. Goat gland surgery sounds fucking stupid. Yeah. So Brinkley instead began calling it the four-phase compound operation. That's awesome. Yeah, I want one. Yeah, let's go. Besides just giving it the name, Italy was also where Brinkley actually refined the procedure. Although, when I say refined, it's still all utterly useless. Yeah. But maybe he could do it faster? Well, it's just, it has to look. It has to look good, and it has to sound good, and it has to have an order to it, and if it's standardized, then it's like, oh, it's standardized, so this has to work if he's doing it every time. He has to at least be getting better at opening up and stitching closed ball sacks. Depends on how drunk he is. Yeah. I imagine, yeah, it's like, can they walk away or not? Yeah, and a lot of times they couldn't, because a lot of times he was very drunk. Well, that's the goat gland's work in the magic. That's the fifth phase of the compound operation, which you cannot walk, and it does not work. Once I put these goat balls in you, you're going to climb a mountain so good, boy. Your T-feet going to get tiny, you're going to fucking go all sorts of diagonals. Well, first, here's how the procedure of it, this is how he standardized the procedure. First, he would slice slivers off the testicle of a three-month-old Taugenberg goat and toss the slivers into one side of the male patient's open scrotum. Got it. He would then block the vas deferens. Got it. The cum tubes that you were pinching earlier. Oh, they're fun. Yeah, the cum tubes. Got it. Yeah, but he would just block them on that one side. This, of course, was just a bit of stagecraft. Dr. Brinkley said that he had to block the cum tubes, because, quote, "If part of the secretion of the new gland were not restrained, the patient would be given to a lascivious use of his power." He didn't have too much fun. He didn't have too much ball energy. Which I do understand. He would. So after Brinkley blocked off the vas deferens, he would transplant a blood vessel and a nerve to the reinvigorated testicle, claiming that this would give sufficient blood supply for the transplant. It would also serve to increase, quote, "nerve energization." In reality, none of this did nothing for anyone or anything. But again, it all sounded very good. It sounds fine. Yeah, it sounds, yeah. Nerve energization. That sounds like a very, like, 1920s, you know, phrase. Yeah, you just make up words. Yeah. Yeah. But because Brinkley wasn't doing anything resembling actual science or medicine, the entire four-phase compound operation could be done in 15 minutes. 20 minutes tops. And then Brinkley was, of course, ready to take on the next patient. I always look for speed. That is my thing. I want it fast. With surgery? Yeah. I guess quantity. I like to be fast. I like to be in a factory-like setting. Yeah. I wish that when I went to the doctor, I was more like sitting on a conveyor belt. And that would just go through and a machine would just come up to me and just jab needles in my eyeballs. Yeah. Fat, fat, fat, fat, skinny, fat, fat. Because Brinkley had brought the operation down to just 15 minutes, he was able to process 50 patients a week at his hospital in Milford. To meet the ever-growing demand, Brinkley's wide-ranging operation was a success. His wife, Minnie, also got a full medical license so she could do goat gland surgeries, too. They even brought in Minnie's brother, Dr. Tiberius Jones. That's me, Tiberius Jones. I cut balls from across the room. I brought a. Before long, there was a whole staff of doctors doing so many goat gland surgeries that Brinkley's hospital was blowing through 40 to 60 goats a week. Jesus Christ. He was there. Dr. Mangle loved goats. But the medical reality of Brinkley's four-phase compound operation was not as rosy as Brinkley was making it out to be. What was actually happening within the scrotums of these poor suckers was that the slivers of goat testicles were, at best, being absorbed into the body harmlessly. Or, at worst, they were rejected by the body outright, which resulted in a large number of infections. So you remember that Brinkley was a bad doctor. drunk, and sometimes the drink led to laziness. Brinkley would later admit to sometimes implanting goat testicles into random spots on the patient's body by just cutting open a layer of skin tucking in a little bit of goat gland and sewing it back up before calling it a day just like for no reason for no read just like I'm gonna this is what I'm gonna do today just I'm gonna do this for this one right now I want to do this let's see what happens now in your research did they always kill the goats or were there a bunch of sterile goats running around this town well they were all baby goats so it's the same I think it was it had to have killed them yeah I don't think so you don't think that we're not I mean it's neutering yeah oh yeah it's the same as you do with a kitten or a puppy great yeah and we was doing it with three months old goats so I would imagine he made a good side business so yeah definitely yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we're doing it with three months old goats so I would imagine he made a good side business selling goat me doing goat meat yeah because remember he remember he had worked in that packing plant for a long time yeah so I'm I'm sure it was a good side business for him but he actually didn't really need it because as we're about to get into the money he was making off of this is unfathomable but even when Brinkley was doing the full four phase compound procedure many patients who had goat gland surgery quickly found themselves inflamed and infected but Brinkley quickly came up with a system to handle those patients who were more sensitive and more sensitive to the people who were more sensitive to foreign bodies floating around their innards this is it I have this the solution is designed it says go away you fucking pussy you can't you can't handle joke well once the operation was done Brinkley shuttled patients out of his hospital as quickly as he could because complications were common and extremely painful with such those who had to stay in Brinkley's hospital because of the complications we're starting to talk new patients out of going through with the surgery and you also don't want to walk into a hospital and I have four rooms full of guys going all my balls I'll fuck it hurts don't do it get that guy out of here we'll solve this problem Brinkley rented out the town hotel in Milford to keep his unhappy patients from speaking to the newly arrived rubes patients would be be sequestered in this hotel until they were healthy enough to leave which could take weeks or in some cases months listen before you go in there you don't want to go over there they're all moaning and stuff it's the complaints room we don't people we don't have people go in there you don't want to go over here it's called a naked nurse room you want to go spend some time in there all right remember that those balls are going to go to good use or I'm saying all right let me gonna go hit the bar but even though there were plenty of people who were being genuinely harmed by dr. Brinkley xeno transplants Brinkley was the type who was able to stay five steps ahead of all the critics and the naysayers while Brinkley was not a pioneering surgeon he was a fucking genius con artist as such he was one of the first people in the world to realize the power of the new mass media of the 1920s in particular Brinkley realized the power of radio just when it was starting to spread across the United States Brinkley had been introduced to the radio while in Los Angeles so when he returned to Milford he opened his own radio station KFKB Kansas first Kansas best KFKB was on the air every day from 5:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m. broadcasting a mix of early country music comedy poetry readings weather reports and gospel preaching all performed live but the centerpiece of the broadcasting day was Brinkley's two daily segments drawing from his medicine show days Brinkley proved to be a natural broadcaster he soon developed a style that was designed to appeal to and manipulate country folk by giving medical advice using the tone and delivery of what else but a preacher of course now Brinkley presented himself as a homespun country doctor but he would inject Latin terms for body parts and medical procedures in such a way that's sounded impressive but didn't make him sound too terribly highfalutin you got to trust me I'm a doctor I don't know much better than you overall he presented himself as a simple man who just wanted to help all his friends out there on radio land with their medical problems Brinkley encouraged listeners to write in so he could help them cure their ailments his charity however had its limits although he wished again and again that there could be another way oh but as he explained so patiently in this speech from one of his broadcasts which Henry will now perform the poor dr. Brinkley ma he needed assistance to my dear dear friends my patients my supplicants your many letters lie here before your many letters lie here before me touching testimonials of your pain your grief and the wretchedness that is visited upon the innocent I can reply now I can reply now to a few just a few others I shall have to answer by mail but oh oh my friends you must help me remember your letters asking advice must be accompanied by two dollars which hardly covers the cost of postage stenographic hire in the office of office rent I am your friend but not even a great baron of Wall Street could withstand the ruinous cost of helping you unless this small fee accompanies your letter so every person who wrote him a letter put $2 in and that's $2 like just to have him read the letter it's not it's the modern equivalent about 40 bucks fucking wild yeah almost 40 bucks like 37 38 is it soupy sales but this is the beginnings of like this is a type of American and people that come to America that we are gonna recognize a bit and this is a guy we like we like this kind of guy oh my god America loves this kind of guy and he's one of the very first like that like John Brinkley is a pioneer in using mass media to scam idiots out of money now while there was entertainment content on Brinkley's radio station many of the shows were thinly veiled advertisements for either dr. Brinkley himself or a growing cabal of fellow medical con artists who were picking up what Brinkley was putting down see this was the dawn of modern advertising and Brinkley understood modern advertising better than most see in theory advertising is supposed to simply let the consumer know who the business is what they do where they are and why the consumer should use them over any and all competitors but in the 1920s companies began to develop more insidious ways of selling as many products as possible trying to figure out how to sell people shit they don't need by using manipulation half-truths and outright lies companies began inventing problems that could only be solved by purchasing their product and a lot of those companies were in the healthcare arena the most famous example of this is the mouthwash Listerine which was originally invented as a surgical antiseptic that had little use outside of a hospital but in the 1920s the guys at Listerine learned that their product could safely be used as a mouthwash hey you see that stuff you're using to clean out the toilet have you tried drinking it all the way you're gonna want to drink it in kind of a how do you put it in like a bad way in a wrong way the front of your face yeah this is the 1920s no one knew what the fuck mouthwash was have you thought about that just having to be on your teeth yeah you scared of a toothbrush swish this around in your gullet being gay brushing your teeth all night looking like a man sucking his husband's penis Joyce Listerine they didn't even know why they should buy fucking mouthwash so to sell their product to a wider customer base Listerine's admin brushed up on their Latin and created a scary-sounding problem that had never before in history existed chronic halitosis whoa Listerine ads I if it did exist it existed within Abraham Lincoln yeah there are several men of that time period sure and had chronic halitosis well Listerine ads basically told the public your breath smells like shit and when you're not around all anyone can talk about is how much your breath smells like shit you sir madam are suffering from chronic halitosis and it's ruining your fucking life directly talking to you talking to you I guess I'll buy some Listerine now bad breath is of course a real issue with real causes but the term chronic halitosis was an invention of admin to make bad breath seem like a serious medical condition that could only be solved if you bought Listerine this assertion basically created the mouthwash industry which is now of course worth billions and I've made it to the age of 42 and I'm still not quite sure how to use it properly sure now you put it in your mouth and you swish it around you spit it out I'm talking about when in the sequence at the end some people say before I don't trust them I use my water pick first and then I get in there with my pick pick. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this. I swish around my Listerine and then I kiss Julie. And he has to kiss Julie because otherwise she yells. Yeah, that is true. Now Brinkley took a cue from the Listerine model of advertising and spent a lot of time during his radio segments hinting that male listeners weren't as virile as they could nor as they should be. You owe it to yourself and to your wife, Brinkley would say, to book the four-phase compound procedure as soon as you can afford it. Brinkley also used vague ad speak to bolster his own credentials. Before going off on a tangent about the reliable effects of xenotransplantation, Brinkley would qualify his claims with phrases like leading medical authority state or one of the best surgeons in the United States assures me or reliable textbook show. Hey man, that sounds good to me. It makes sense. Four out of ten doctors approved. Yeah. That's four doctors. Now concerning Brinkley's broadcasting, you might be thinking, so what? Sure, this quack out of rural Kansas has his own radio station, but how many people could he possibly reach all the way out there? But if you're asking that question, then I bet that your experience with radio is on the FM band, which did not become dominant in the United States until the 1970s. See, FM has higher sound quality. But that quality comes at the cost of broadcasting range because FM waves travel through line of sight. For example, my college radio station was one of the most powerful college stations in the country, broadcasting 35,000 watts of pure alternative KTXT-FM Lubbock. Whoa, that was good. Thanks. That was good. Yeah. And then you do like noise rock. Yeah. All right, buddy. Yeah. No fucking tuck. Everybody tuck in. We're going to listen to the full 20-minute version of the Diamond Sea by Sonic Youth here. My name's Beatnik here on KTXT-FM. Coming up, we're going to do six Tom Waits songs in a row. Finally. I wanted something to drive my car off the bridge. It's the five at six with Tom Waits. But even at 35,000 watts, that only got us a range of about 80 miles on the FM band. And that was even with the added advantage of broadcasting. To the flat plains around Lubbock, Texas, where there's nothing to block a signal's line of sight. This is not the case with AM radio, which was the band John Brinkley used. John Brinkley's AM station was just 5,000 watts when he upgraded it in 1927. But since AM waves travel up into the ionosphere and bounce back down to Earth, their range is far superior. It's why Coast to Coast was Coast to Coast AM and how it indeed traveled. But what this means is that Brinkley's 5,000 watt station could be heard across large swaths of America. So John Brinkley very quickly became a national sensation through radio. Those envelopes carrying $2 each were soon arriving by the bagful. And at the height of his popularity, it was estimated that Brinkley received 50,000 letters every day. That's how you make money. That's how you make money doing nothing. So I bet you've been waiting 15 years to give people that information. Without having to do it pedantically and be like drunk at a bar. I do love explaining the difference between the F in band and the A in band. I love all that shit. I finally used my mass comm minor. That's amazing. No one uses their college degree. I use both. Every day. Now, Brinkley's daily segments quickly evolved into his most popular and most financially successful segment called the medical question box. Eight secretaries were hired to go through the mail and select letters in which listeners would describe their various ailments. But let me just think that's how many letters they were getting. Eight secretaries had to go through them. Well, you know that I do believe it works in a way that we're seeing now all over the place where if you are on the lonely road, like think back in the day, you're on a lonely road and you're driving or between work or you're you're doing long haul traveling or doing these things. And then this man appears on your radio. Oh, there's no radio in cars at this point in time. This is all people sitting at home and they're at home because there's no TV. Exactly. So there's nothing to do. Right. So you're listening to this guy. And because there's so limited amount of people you can hear in this fashion, this guy immediately becomes 10 times more legit in your mind. Yeah. Because that's the most famous doctor, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And is this favorite this fake doctor? And every time there is a massive jump in mass communication in humanity, we really don't know how to handle it. And we and we we tend and well, most most humans don't know how to handle it. But there are always a small amount of con men like John Brinkley that immediately know how to take advantage of it. Jump right into it. No, he was able to convince people kind of like how people think that memes are news. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, Dr. Brinkley. Dr. Brinkley would read the letter. He would basically take a letter out of the medical question box, pretend that, you know, it was random. It wasn't. He'd read the letter, discuss the ailment and prescribe a proprietary drug of his own branding that would cure or treat said ailment. These drugs could only be bought, however, at a network of 500 pharmacies called the Brinkley Pharmaceutical Association. And all 1500 people worked at Brinkley brand pharmacies several states. I think it's like five or six. And it was all under Brinkley's control. But the genius of this was that Brinkley wasn't just selling one treatment to one person. With every letter Brinkley read, there would be hundreds of thousands of other listeners who had the exact same ailment. So after hearing their ailments described, diagnosed and prescribed, these listeners would also go out and buy the same product as the person who'd written the letter. As I said, John Brinkley, And it's another example of by the time you realize it doesn't work anymore, you can you either chopped off to like the idea of like, oh, well, you know, it doesn't work for everybody and blah, blah, blah. But there's also it's so disparate and spread out. It's hard to go and get back and like, say like, oh, my God, this all happened to me because there's you can't you can't get on the radio and tell everybody. And then you're the the he's not worried about getting repeat customers. No, because all he's doing is finding brand new customers every day, every day. Every time someone buys a radio, he gets brand new customers. Yeah. Now concerning these pharmacies that were a part of the Brinkley Pharmaceutical Association, each one was supplied with dozens of Brinkley brand medicines that weren't too far off from the patent medicines Brinkley had started his career selling. The patent medicines, however, that was only part of the scam. Instead of only selling his own creations, many Brinkley brand medicines were generic medications that were simply repackaged and marked up to high heaven. Pharmacists would take generic aspirin or laxatives, for example, and put them into a new box printed with Brinkley's name and a patent medicine number. They call it the American dream. Yeah, they call it Brinkley's remedy number 74 or Brinkley's prescription number 106. And they would charge multiple times the original price simply because it was in a Brinkley box. With other Brinkley brand medicines, Brinkley would just mix existing medicines together and but those got an even larger markup. It makes sense. It's more medicines than one. Now, Brinkley's remedy number 114, for example, was an eight ounce mixture of constipation and liver medications. I'll clear you out. Yeah, I guess that's all it is, right? You just, you're like, once you blow your butthole out, you're like, must've worked. Yep. Three ounces came from an herbal liver treatment called Lloyd's chioanthus. One ounce was a laxative called Park Davis's cascara evacuant. Four ounces were just colored water that made it all look cool. Now, the pharmacies themselves, they made bank on these markups. But part of the deal was that John Brinkley would get at least a dollar for each sale. And that's at least a dollar. That amounts to about $20 a sale today. Multiply that, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of sales and you have the makings of an empire. Dude, this guy was so fucking rich. Yeah, dude. Perfect capitalist. And we're only like, this is just the beginning. Now, while some Brinkley brand medicines did little to nothing, others could be just as harmful as the patent medicines of old. One patient who took Brinkley's number 50 experienced symptoms similar to cholera. In addition to vomiting that was so violent, it opened up an old ulcer and caused a near fatal hemorrhage. Another patient who took Brinkley's number 50 had to have a life-saving operation to remove part of his stomach after he showed up to a real doctor's office. Cold and nearly pulseless. The weirdest Brinkley medicine, though, that had dangers all of its own was Brinkley's prescription number seven. This was Brinkley's itch relief formula, which was just grease made from hog lard, sulfur, and gunpowder. Now, what's the point of it? Chronically itchy patients were instructed to take a hot bath, dry themselves off, and apply Brinkley's number seven grease. from head to toe doesn't matter if you're only your arms it should gotta apply every inch your body it only works if it covers up every part of every pore every second every inch yeah because you want to use as much as possible so let's buy another one of course the patient was then supposed to put on long underwear and gloves before going to bed otherwise you'll fuck up your bed yeah you literally yeah you just coat everything in fucking sulfur and gunpowder and hoglard yeah but no but it's so it could capture the grease and let the grease do its work overnight oh yeah i do it when i moisturize my feet yeah well this is supposed to go on for three nights straight and by the fourth day the patient was supposed to be cured of any and all itchy sensations i probably would attack you yeah literally and it explodes when it bites into the gunpowder just wake up covered in bees yeah your least problem is how you're itchy that's the problem at that point you're just like yeah now that's my easiest problem yeah you're walking around smelling like hoglard and farts god it must have been so hard to be a wife back then it really was buddy yeah or a husband you know like the wives get just as itchy as the husbands oh man although i would love to cover julian hoglard hey when's your anniversary pass there's christmas coming up christmas oh for me yeah now brinkley would sometimes prescribe up to three or four medicines all at once to patients who wrote in and because his listeners were fans of the highest order they took his directives more often than not as the only medical advice they needed while legitimate doctors within range of a kfkb broadcast found their patient lists were steadily shrinking brinkley and his pharmaceutical association were making staggering amounts of money this feels like tick tock all over again yeah man it's estimated that in today's cash value brinkley was making anywhere between 7.8 and 13.7 million dollars a year on the brinkley pharmaceutical association scheme alone that's a big gap that however was peanuts compared to what he was making on goat gland surgeries on the advice of harry chandler brinkley had raised the minimum price of a goat gland operation to 750 dollars and as i said the assembly line he created in his hospital was allowing 50 operations to be done every week so it's any he's making anywhere between 750 and two thousand dollars per operation damn and that's in you know late 1920s money in today's cash value brinkley was making wait for it 30 million dollars a year good god goat gland surgery get me in the business dude i want in on the business i can see that's why all the other con guys showed up yeah there's so much money to be had yeah man i'm looking at this right now if you want to buy a goat today it's between 100 and 800 dollars wow so today you could buy a full goat that's like the price of a goat gland surgery don't get me fucking started on chicken wings you have any idea how many chickens you got to buy to have a good time man you're gonna fucking murder every one of them dude i know that's it's goddamn shame only two on them there was such incredible amounts of money being made brinkley was spending just as much as he made he got to he bought custom lincolns and cadillacs had gold plated hubcaps put on all of them he had either his initials or the words dr brinkley emblazoned on gold throughout every car he bought said he put it up he every car had 13 instances of either his name or his initials call me dr b the b stands for billion yeah come on suck my cup where's my pimp chalice he also owned three yachts he owned three private airplanes three yachts is a lot for someone who lives in kansas yeah well no he still owned them john and minnie both got a taste for diamonds they they bought diamonds that were literally the size of walnuts that is honestly one of my biggest sort of like guilty pleasures was diamonds yeah yeah you indulge every once in a while every once in a while but plugs i'm sitting i have four in me well many fashioned her diamonds into necklaces while john turned his massive diamonds into incredibly ostentatious cufflinks how many guess what these look like balls now as far as what his mostly rural mostly poor audience thought about brinkley's spickiest shows of wealth probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to hear that they absolutely fucking loved to watch him spend their hard-earned money there you go you big old genius i love that you got different boats for your landlocked home he needs them you never know when he's gonna need to do go gland surgeries on the high seas now excuse me i have to go out to the forest and see if i can find any mushrooms to eat oh my god we're lucky in that way there's a lot of mushrooms behind the house we're lucky that's where i shit that's where the mushrooms come from we're self-sustaining fine well brinkley justified his frivolous spending by saying that he had grown up poor and since he had dedicated himself to helping other people he'd earned nay deserved this lifestyle and his fans agreed wholeheartedly y'all know your patreon keeps me fucked up i'm fucking thick in 4ks and graphic tees y'all know that you know that that's where that goes i'm just being up front with you being transparent brinkley's goat gland procedure was not something that could easily be replicated because it needed that brinkley charm to boost the placebo effect but plenty of con men absolutely understood the scam brinkley was pulling on the radio with the medical question box there were soon brinkley clones popping up all over the country but none were as good at the show business aspect of brinkley's scam nor were there any that were as caustic and aggressive as norman baker out of iowa so let's take a little break from brinkley to discuss this fascinating character yeah like none of these other guys know how to do it right yeah now before norman baker saw how much money there was to be made by selling fake medicine over the radio he'd already had a long and successful career as a vaudeville magician When Baker had been a stage performer, he'd shared the bill with such acts as Madam Tangley, the psychic levitator, or the electric man, who had such mastery over the power of electricity that God had granted him the ability to melt iron bars. Madam Tangley should have been a knot woman. Huh. Tire up and untie a tangler. You're right, Eddie, but you should have produced that. freak show yeah that is true i've been awesome you would have been honestly i feel like you could quit all this and just produce freak shows so you could i would i you know i would think that but i like i said my empathy is too high yeah i can't i'm not i'm like i can't take advantage of these freaks i'd make sure they all get paid yeah i mean i feel like so i didn't get him health insurance get a torso man get a chicken woman but i'd be you know how much health insurance for freak show actually i'm gonna say right now eddie honestly because of the high turnover rate because they're mostly dying of the little diseases they have, you want to have to go through a lot of premiums. As long as they're keep breeding. I love this guy. He's the best producer Coney Island's ever had. Well, Baker was also, as I said, an inventor. He was also an accomplished calliope player. He actually invented a portable calliope called the calliophone. Honestly, Baker kind of reminds me of Anton LaVey because Baker also knew how to piss people off and he knew the importance of having a look baker always wore purple from head to toe drove a purple car only used lavender ink when he wrote letters fuck yeah dude but after seeing how successful john brinkley was with the medical question box norman baker decided to try it out himself despite the fact that he had no medical training whatsoever he wasn't even a doctor much less a surgeon wow he opened a radio station in iowa using the call letters ktnt which stood for know the naked truth that's a catchy title and tellingly baker and john brinkley actually knew each other and occasionally talked shop but baker was such a scammer that he actually scammed brinkley out of a bunch of radio equipment worth fifteen hundred dollars so wait you mean to tell me that this guy was his banya that's what this is also you know i mean i'm sure he had a hard time keeping track of all of his shit yeah you know i imagine he was able to just like didn't even know that he gave oh no he tried getting the money back and yeah and baker was the fucking snake he never caught he never caught up to him but when you con man get beat by another con man i'd feel like i'd be like ah you funny guy you got me happened last episode remember like they just gave it was like Yeah, give me $200, we'll call it quits. He understands. Now remember, Baker was not a doctor. He was a fucking magician. But Baker was, like Brinkley, a fantastic broadcaster. Although Baker took a different approach. As opposed to the friendly and helpful preacher type that Brinkley portrayed, Baker's broadcasts were described as venomous, aggressive, and sometimes obscene. He did our route. That's what he did, man. If you don't put these fucking goat nuts up in your shit, Listen, fucking, fuck you to death. Listen, you lip-dick pussy. I know what you're not doing right now. Fuck it. All right? So what I suggest you do is get to Gokland stuffing. Is your wife acting like a fucking cunt? I bet she is. Because you're a fucking look-like one. You fucking piece of shit. All right, here we go. We got Beetlejuice coming up. Yeah, I mean, some consider Norman Baker to be the father of shock jock radio. They consider him the first shock jock. He specifically went after licensed doctors, denouncing them as educated fools and cutters. One of Norman's favorite bits was to say that MD only stood for more dough. Oh, fuck yeah. I'm using that shit, dude. I'm doing that every time I'm at the doctor now, man. I'm going to make everybody hate me, man. But he was also quite a bit more dangerous than John Brinkley when it came to spreading, you know, fake cures. Brinkley was not a doctor. But he had heard tell of a cancer cure created by a conventional, convicted medical swindler named Harry Hoxie. That is such a Hoxster's name. Harry Hoxie. Oh, Harry Hoxie. Nice to meet you. So Baker brought Hoxie out to Iowa. It's a lot of this, like, wiping the brow, taking the hat off, wiping the brow, you know. And he turned his focus not on sexual wellness, but on cancer. Hawking this supposed cure, which was really just repackaged horse medicine. Wow. Horses don't got cancer. Have you ever seen a horse with cancer? No. Horses are strong. They're weak like people. Take that medicine quick. It's giving me ivermectin vibes. Oh, very much so. Well, this, it was just a paste. It was like, it was topical cancer medication. It was normally used to remove leg knots on horses. But when Hoxie combined it with various laxatives and douches and rubbed it on his patients, it was so caustic that it actually resulted in the deaths of all five original, test subjects. But here at Baker, that's the first thing you got to understand. Guess what they don't have anymore? Cancer. Cancer. And it sent them right to heaven. That's their favorite place. It's the place they've always wanted to go. But even so, Baker believed he could make it work. I could do that. Not one horse nod on any of them. Nope. Now, I know this does sound ridiculous, but Baker was the type of man who made big swings. Yep. And he made those swings very publicly. For example, he actually threw a sort of medical festival in Muscatine, Iowa, where he claimed to have cured 25 patients. Yep. Of their cancer. Ever the showman. And this, honestly, this sounds like one of the most ridiculous, crazy things ever done on a stage in America. Baker took the stage at his festival and brought out a man who was suffering from brain cancer. The man's head was still bandaged from brain surgery. So in front of a live audience, Baker removed the man's bandages and lifted off a part of the man's skull to reveal the exposure. Baker then sprinkled a special powder of his own devising into the brain hole, replaced the skull piece, re-bandaged the head, and declared the man's cancer cured! Yes! What I have found is that actually the degraded parmesan works much better than the shredded. It really gets into the little nodules. That's actually the best way to do cocaine. Yeah, yeah. Straight to the brain. Put it in my fucking dome, dude. Fucking put it in my head window. Put it in my fucking, I got my fucking chute. Put it in my fucking chute, dude. Sir, now that you have experienced the miracle of Dr. Baker's brain powder, how do you feel? Same pitch. Yeah, he was charged with practicing medicine without a license pretty soon after that. Oh, wow. The radio station was taken off the air not too long after. After that, for being not only obscene but against the public interest, but men like Norman Baker were a direct consequence of the success that John Brinkley was enjoying with his own scams. Norman Baker was just the most interesting. There were hundreds of guys like this all over the country. So, let us return to John Brinkley's story, where we will at long last meet Brinkley's nemesis. So, the guy, though, with the hole in the head, did he, like, die immediately? No, no. He at least got off stage. God. You can live around with, you can honestly live like that. With your brain exposed? Yeah, yeah, exposed. Like, you can get, they pop the thing back on, and they put the junk in. Normally, like, they put a piece of plastic over it. We just watched all the Saw movies. We know what's going on. No, no, no, you know, I've- I'm basically a surgeon. It happens, I've watched, like, ten episodes of Grey's Anatomy where, you know, they do brain surgery on people, and they're alive, and they're awake the whole time, and they're asking questions. Yeah, playing the trumpet and shit. Yeah, playing the trumpet. And a lot of times they'll go from that to go be on House. Yeah. And then they'll go and be on Elementary, and then they'll go on Bones, and they seem to be fine. They're totally fine. There's a whole lot of people that were in Lost that were also on Grey's Anatomy. They lived. They lived wonderful lives. Now, John Brinkley's nemesis was a legitimately good man with the incredible name of Morris Fishbein. It's me, Morris. I take umbrage with what the man is doing. Yes, we can all guess. Morris Fishbein's heritage, yes. I'm from Massachusetts. I am actually Muslim. Yeah, yeah. Morris Fishbein was the first guy that said, "You need a good Jewish doctor." And it's me. Morris Fishbein was an actual doctor who had found his way into the field of medical investigation as assistant editor of the AMA's Medical Journal. Fishbein soon made it his own personal mission to investigate, expose, and help prosecute quacks, but while Fishbein took down dozens of charlatans over the years, his main nemesis for two decades was Dr. John Brinkley. See, I've been naturally tuberant ever since I was born. I've never need medical assistance to have an ejaculatory experience. Morris Fishbein's got the juice. I got two fresh matzo balls ready for you. I got the juice. Now, while Brinkley was Morris Fishbein's white whale, Fishbein investigated hundreds of medical frauds throughout his career, and as you might expect, many of Fishbein's targets were performing procedures that were quite similar to what Brinkley was doing with goat glands. One of Fishbein's earliest crusades was in Chicago concerning a doctor who had taken testicular implants to new and ridiculous heights. The top of the Sears Tower. That's the tallest ball surgery in all of American history. This man, he was truly mentally ill. This doctor had become impotent, so to rejuvenate himself, he somehow obtained six testicles from the bodies of dead men and implanted them under his skin, his own skin, under the skin covering his ribs. So his ribs had six distinct bumps. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. Come and feel my bumps. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. Come on. I'm Mr. Bumpy Man. funny. Kumballa. Yeah, Kumballa. Now I have become Death Destroyer of Worlds. I voted for Kumballa. I voted for Marianne Williamson like a real American. Well, this doctor claimed that this third testicle within his scrotum and the six extra testicles implanted outside of his ribs had given him a stronger sex drive and increased mental clarity. Fishbein, of course, easily proved this doctor's claims to be fraudulent. He's clearly dying! I know for a fact he does your work sexually. I showed him a nude picture of my lovely Marianne. And he had not a single reaction to her pendulous breasts, her wild bush, her absolutely beautiful sable hair on the back of her head. Oh, Morris, I love you so much. Yes, if someone can't get hard for you, honey, they might as well not have a dick and ball. Thread me open, you big creplock. All right, well, mind my knee nuts. These knee nuts grew natural. Now, Morris Fishbein had actually been a part of the AMA investigation to John Brinkley when the good doctor had his month in the spotlight in Los Angeles. But since the governor had overruled the AMA, Fishbein had to wait for another opportunity. So, basically, Fishbein's crusade against Brinkley started in 1921. Damn. But while Brinkley spent the 1920s building his empire through radio, Morris Fishbein became somewhat of a celebrity in his own right, having spent the decade exposing medical frauds across the country. Like, sort of a Chris Hansen type, but for quacks instead of pedophiles. It takes a good celebrity to beat a bad celebrity. It does. Like, I know that's a dumb statement, but even kind of looking at the position that we are in now, like, you really do need to come at celebrity with somebody else who can understand the mechanisms of celebrity. Yeah, you gotta fight the same game. By 1928, Fishbein had been named the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which is usually just called the JAMA. Pennsylvania. It's Pajama. The one in Alabama is Jamal Madinah. Jamal Madinah. And so, at the height of his influence, Fishbein made it his personal mission to take down John Brinkley once and for all. Fishbein called out Brinkley in the Jama by naming him a charlatan of the highest order, while also demanding that the FCC, which had just been created the year before, intervene in Brinkley's radio show. See, Fishbein was an investigator first and foremost, and when he lifted the hood on Brinkley's empire, he started finding a lot of death. There was the house painter, who had fallen gravely ill after getting the goat gland procedure from Dr. Brinkley. Lockjaw had set in nine days after the surgery, but the far more troubling complication was the gangrene that had appeared on the incisions around the house painter's scrotum. Honey, your balls smell like cheese! You're hoping to eat some cheese you like? Another doctor tried to intervene after the gangrene set in, but help came too late, and the house painter died a horrific, lingering death as a direct result of John Brinkley's haphazard style of medicine. I'm thinking he could survive if we just cut off his bottom half. We just saw him through the belly button. He might live. Yeah, all the stuff fell out. No. He only painted half the house. Do you think we still have to pay the wife? Let's get out of here. Smells terrible in here. Well, Fishbein then began contacting other doctors, who had observed Brinkley's operations. And one doctor said that he watched as Brinkley just sort of moved around arteries and nerves in a patient's scrotum like so much angel hair pasta, for no reason that the doctor could surmise. Oh, don't do this, Marcus. I love angel hair. Oh, ew. This doctor then saw Brinkley put mysterious little pellets into said scrotum before sewing the man back up. Had no idea why he did it, what they were. Altoids. It's to kind of cover up some of the little smack mouths. Yeah, it don't smell too good. We're going to put some altoids in it. Just going to spray some banaca on the tip of his cock. It's actually caviar. Oh, nice. But while those are disturbing stories, the sad testimonies came from the many, many men who found that the placebo effect wore off very quickly after the goat gland surgery. See, most men did come away from the surgery feeling reinvigorated, but it's thought that much of their returned vim and vigor came from not just the placebo effect, but from the massive vitamin injections that Brinkley gave them along with the surgery. And God knows what that meant by vitamin injections and what was even fucking in that shit. Who knows? Fucking him in the ass. Here's what a major needle takes. And that's just the one. The guys whose biggest problems were being sad about the boner cure not working. Of course. One man reported that he experienced complications almost immediately after Minnie Brinkley finished the 15-minute surgery. This patient tried telling Minnie Brinkley that something was wrong, but she waved him off and told him to go to sleep and forget about it. The man's health continued to falter, but he was, like so many others, shuffled out of the hospital and into the hotel. An infection set in, and while the man was not, specific about what exactly happened to his junk, he did say, quote, "I'm a ruined man, physically." Brinkley's fuck-ups, however, were not just limited to goat gland operations. Yet another patient said, after Brinkley operated on his prostate, Brinkley plugged up the bleeding wound with a piece of rubber from a boot heel. He wiped it off. Hey, you know, I just, my go-to, always, is the wine cork. It's natural, get a little red wine in you. Sure. One survivor of a Brinkley operation almost died from an infected bladder and an open wound that oozed pus from his scrotum. During an operation, Brinkley had punctured the patient's bladder and had tried plugging it up with just a rock, a literal rock. That should do it. Yeah, it was so much harder. You could literally get stoned back then. Not surprisingly, several people reported that during these operations, they could smell whiskey on Brinkley's breath. It's called surgeon coffee. Surgeon juice. But despite Brinkley's cheery, on-air persona, he was often unsympathetic to people who had complications. One poor man wrote to Brinkley to complain that he could barely walk after his operation, but the only response Brinkley sent back was, quote, "Your condition is your own fault." Merry Christmas. You suffered from Jingle Balls. That's a funny little joke we do around here at the Ball Clinic. Yeah, that's a funny little thing we do. And so, after spending years collecting evidence, Morris Fishbein teamed up with the Kansas City Star to print multiple exposés featuring testimonies from Brinkley's heretofore unheard from patients who were not only unsatisfied with them, but were, in some cases, permanently wrecked with no hope of repair. Now, the Kansas City Star went hard on the exposés by publishing not only the testimonies of survivors, but the death certificates of 42 patients who had died after being treated by John Brinkley. And, you know, all doctors have a certain fatality rate, especially back then, but most of these patients weren't even sick before seeing Brinkley. But, surprisingly, only six people had died after the goat gland surgery specifically. I bet you, you know why? It's because balls--it's like, why prostate cancer and testicular cancer are some of the more, like, curable cancers? 'Cause they're at the end of the track. Yeah. They're at the outside of your body. So it's easier to get it--it's easier for it to not jump into the rest of your body. Just take 'em out. Yeah. If I was him, I'd just be like, "All patients die eventually." You know what? He's got a point. Life is an endless march to the grave. Yeah. Wow. Wow. I should send him $2. Thank you. Amongst other causes of death, these poor souls in Dr. Brinkley's care died from nephritis, which is inflammation of the kidneys, peritonitis, which is an infection in the lining of the abdomen. Many died from gangrene and sepsis--can you say sepsis? Sepsis. Sepsis. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. was called Little Old Fishy. Oh, hey, be kind there, buddy. Brinkley was also a rabid anti-Semite. He soon went after Fishbein's Jewish heritage on radio broadcasts as well, routinely referring to Morris Fishbein as, quote, the poor Jew boy. Hey, I'm doing very well financially. But just because I don't have a giant mansion out in the hills doesn't mean I'm not doing well. I'm doing very well. Yeah, if you listen to my mother, I'm some kind of poor Jew boy, but if anybody else, they tell you I'm doing very well. The libel suit did absolutely nothing to deter Morris Fishbein. He actually doubled his efforts by teaming up with the head of the AMA's Bureau of Investigation. This was another man with an incredible name called Arthur Cram. Today we're going to stand up and we're going to fuck you! Son of a. Oh, fuck, I got to stretch my legs! Oh, fuck. Someone get this man a banana. I said no bananas. Well, together, Arthur Cram and Morris Fishbein released several volumes of a journal called Nostrums and Quackery and Pseudomedicine, in which they collected and published information on some 200,000 quacks and charlatans over the course of the series. Cram and Fishbein need to be selling ointments. I've never seen two people sell an ointment's names like that in fucking ever, dude. Fishbein and Cram. Cram and Fishbein? Oh, Cram and Fishbein's liniment? That is the. I'm buying it! Yeah. But they did, however, believe that Dr. Brinkley was the most dangerous quack in all of America because he was damn good at radio and, in their words, he was the most daring. And so, because of their sustained efforts, the sustained efforts of Cram and Fishbein, Brinkley's medical license was finally revoked by the Kansas State Medical Center. Shortly after losing his medical license, the FCC also chose to not renew Brinkley's broadcasting license because of the many controversies around his medical question box segment. Besides just the danger he posed to the public, citizens had also been disturbed by Brinkley's continued worse of the word goddamn during broadcasts. Yeah, it's his filthy mouth. It's my big problem with it. But more than anything, they had taken issue with how frequently he used words like erection and climax. Which were quite scandalous to hear on the radio in 1930. But not erected, you know. I feel like erection and climax are pretty. Better than God damn. Yeah, God damn these God damn American Medical Association. God damn poor Jews. Not on the list. You're right. Totally fine with it. That's fine. That's fine. They were like, that's fine, is it? Kind of agree with the fish pine stuff. Yeah, that's what they're all saying. I also, I'm kind of interested that, I can't believe that climax is the term. That he would use? Yeah, I thought they would have like a weird other term, like the denouement, or like the grand ending, or the seed, the seed eruption. I mean, from what I can tell from reading some of his transcripts, he would do that sort of like homespun thing, like, you know, there's just no other way to say it. A man's erection. We're just going to say it. We're just going to say erection. Erection. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Now, you'd think that all of this would be the end of John Brinkley. But as the classic quote from H.L. Mencken goes, democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard. See, while government agencies were trying to do everything they could to protect the public from John Brinkley, the public decided that they didn't want to be protected. They wanted Dr. Brinkley. So Brinkley's career not only continued after the expose, and after he lost his medical license in Kansas, and after he lost his broadcasting license from the FCC. His medical career grew. He had not even yet reached the height of his success. So after Brinkley's radio station was shut down by the FCC in Kansas, Brinkley did what a lot of charlatans did back in those days to circumvent government regulations. He established a base of operations down in Del Rio, Texas, and opened a new radio station right across the border of Mexico where the FCC couldn't say shit. He took the show down to the Baja. That's amazing. He pulled the Jesse Ventura. I mean, this was very common. They even had a name for these stations. They were called border blasters because they would build right across the border and they would be extremely high powered so they could reach as far as they could. And Brinkley had so much money that he was able to build a transmitter capable of broadcasting with not 5,000 watts, but 50,000 watts, which is fucking. ridiculous for an AM radio station. Brinkley's border blaster was therefore the strongest, furthest reaching radio station on the entire continent. AM stations, if the transmitter is too strong, they become public nuisances. Ranchers could hear his station broadcasting from their barbed wire fences. Children were said to have picked up John Brinkley's broadcasts in their braces. Now, I don't understand this. What does that mean? That sound would come from the metal? Yes. Yes. Collecting it like it was receptors because it would be like the metal that's in a radio. Yeah, it would vibrate and it would actually brog. I've heard it myself. That's fucking crazy. Yeah, that's how strong they were. And first of all, I'd like to give a big old grand benvenido and welcome an hola and a chowder. My brand new amigas and amigos over here in the lovely Lando de Mexico. Timmy, your Don Imus impression is getting great. Well, then do I suppose fill up his days and perhaps get himself into a position where he could change laws that he didn't like. Brinkley decided to run for governor of Kansas in 1930, same year that the exposes came out. But despite these exposes from the Kansas City Star, Brinkley still came in a close third as a writing candidate. But that today is like a close third that doesn't sound impressive. He actually kind of. See, three days before the election, Kansas changed the write-in laws to specify that only ballots listing the candidate's full Christian name would be counted in favor of the candidate. So if the voter didn't write John R. Brinkley or J.R. Brinkley on the ballot, the vote didn't count. And Brinkley had to tell all of his supporters about this like three days before. But as a result, between 30 and 50,000 ballots for Brinkley were canceled. But because Brinkley was such a close third, had those ballots been counted, he would have been the next governor of Kansas. And let me remind you, the Kansas City Star exposes were not the distant past. They had been printed earlier that year. So let me reiterate, Americans have always been like this. We love our villains. We love villains. We love charlatans. I do believe that there are people in the American makeup to look. Look at guys like this that made money doing nothing and view it as aspirational. Yeah. People who hate the government want to go. People want to vote for people who go against the government. Of course. Yeah. And then they find out why we need a government. Yes. Yeah. Now, because Brinkley technically won, he was encouraged. He ran for governor two years later as an independent. But there was a specter from his past waiting to once again reappear and fuck up his life. Sally Wyke, the ex-wife who'd gotten him arrested in Greenville, South Carolina. 20 years earlier out of pure spite, suddenly reappeared during a second governor campaign to tell anyone who would listen that Brinkley was a deadbeat dad who'd abandoned her and her three daughters to poverty. But Sally Wyke was just another opportunist. Brinkley just had to pay her off. And then she completely recanted and said, like, nah, actually, he's fine. But that was just one of Brinkley's problems in this election. Former patients and family members of deceased patients were starting to speak out about against Brinkley as well. And while some of those patients accepted bribes in exchange for their silence, others didn't. To take care of those who wouldn't take the money, Brinkley got some hired goons from the infamous Pinkerton Detective Agency. And those hired goons silenced Brinkley's detractors using their usual tactics of intimidation and blackmail. Man, the Pinkertons show up in these stories almost every fucking time. Yep. It's wild. Yeah, we're working on. We're working on a Pinkerton series right now. Probably based, probably centered around the Battle of Blair Mountain. But yeah, the Pinkertons are one of the most evil organizations to ever exist in American history. Don't they still exist? Yeah, they sure do. But even though Brinkley was on the ballot for this second election, he still came in a close third. Two years later, he ran for governor again, but this time lost in a landslide. So finally taking the hint, Brinkley liquidated everything he owned in Milford and moved most of his property to the United States. He moved his operations down to the border town of Del Rio. 30 families who worked for him in Milford, Kansas, moved with him down to Texas, which caused a total economic collapse in the small town of Milford. Brinkley's name was removed from every building, and the high school mascot was changed from the goat to the panther, while the people of Milford did everything they could to just forget John Brinkley ever existed. I mean, remember one time they all had to hide in their homes because he was drunk waving a gun around. Yeah, yeah. He's a fun guy. But now that Brinkley was down in Del Rio full time, he could devote himself completely to his border blaster station in Mexico, which was even more fraudulent than the one that came before because it was now entirely outside of the FCC's regulations. Brinkley began running ads for fake goldmine stocks, bogus life insurance, healing crystals, and even autographed pictures of none other than Jesus Christ himself. You know those fake autograph places in Vegas that try to get people who just want a bunch of money? I've never seen an autograph they were selling in there once for Leonardo da Vinci. Yes! I know exactly what you're talking about! You're like, this is fucking stupid. Brinkley also continued advertising patent medicines, but these new products were far more harmful than. than anything he'd sold before. He sold Color Back Hair Dye, which caused lead poisoning. There was Lash Lure, which caused blindness. There was Radithor, which of course caused radium poisoning. Yes, yes. Perhaps the worst was Karimlu, which was a hair removal cream marketed to ladies who wanted to keep a clean upper lip. That was basically rat poison, and it caused paralysis. Take a look at that upper lip. You can't even see it. It's now just teeth. It seems like it was just pure maliciousness. Yeah. He could have created something that worked, or it did nothing! Yeah, or it did nothing. Yeah, he didn't have to sell any of the. Like, he had more money than he could spend in a hundred lifetimes, reasonably at least. But still, he just couldn't help himself. He liked it. He liked scamming people. And he's not making this stuff. This is just the shit that was around. He's just packaging and making money off the top. MS-13's doing it. Yeah. So once Brinkley established Del Rio as a permanent residence, he opened another hospital along the Texas-Mexico border, where he expanded his expertise on the human body to include both the lemonade and the fudge, if you know what I mean. Oh, I do. One corner is one, and around the other is the other. But this new hospital treatment offered, in Brinkley's words, treatment for, quote, Your two sewers, your waterworks, and your garbage. I'm going to start using that. Well, the remedies for your garbage, as it were. were included surgeries for fistulas hemorrhoids colitis and any and all diseases of the male and female rectum but since brinkley was expanding he backed off on the goat glam procedure in the 1930s and only performed it by special request instead he claimed he had a new prostate surgery that worked even better even though the surgery was basically just a partial vasectomy it's like creeping radiohead you're gonna do it you never just chose feet or something it's always the dick or the fucking asshole because it moves units it's his niche man it's it's it's his area but brinkley claimed that this new surgery could smooth wrinkles on a man's face we started the balls we pull them tight pulls all the skin tight he can turn his complexion back to the ruddy glow of health could even change the color of a patient's hair on his broadcast brinkley would challenge his male listeners he would say this is an example of one of his speeches you man why are you holding back you know your prostate's infected and diseased well why do you hold back why do you twist and squirm around the old cocklebur when i'm offering you these low rates this easy work this lifetime of service plan come at once to the brinkley hospital before it is everlastingly too late too late oh so dangerous that's he began referring to the prostate as that old cocklebur that old cocklebur now as i said the american people know what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard as such so many people traveled to del rio for brinkley's new surgery that he was making the modern equivalent of half a million dollars per month wow and so between 1933 and 1938 after he was exposed as a dangerous and deadly fraud multiple times over john brinkley earned the modern equivalent of a quarter of a billion dollars that's good business and let me remind you this most profitable period was during the great depression which did not touch john brinkley in any meaningful way whatsoever yeah that's how good he was he got people during the great depression to give him money well yeah if your dick doesn't work in the depression you gotta be double desperate to get that dick working yeah because that's the only free thing that's out there yeah it's masturbating you'd figure people wouldn't care see i would i don't since brinkley was already into eugenics and because his main nemesis had been a jewish fella named maurice fishbine brinkley spent the 1930s enamored with a little fella out of germany making a whole lot of noise making a whole lot of germans happy imagine a man named adolf hitler oh that old chestnut i love him i was wondering who's gonna get involved oh ball surgeries i would like one as well please i am missing one because he had the goat bite it off yeah that's what i heard well brinkley was such a hitler fan yeah that when he built a massive mansion in del rio texas which he painted pink for some reason he had little swastikas and little iron crosses emblazoned on the swimming pool diorama which is really a bizarre way to pay tribute to the fuhrer i want him to think of the fuhrer when i'm relaxing i want to think of the nazi party and the nazi death machine while i'm laying in the sun you know the swastika diving board four people could dive at once it's just difficult you gotta put it in the center of the pool brinkley soon joined the american fascist movement and became an enthusiastic and supportive member of the nazi party he gave american nazis on his radio on his border blaster station which again was the most powerful radio station in america and in 1936 during that presidential election brinkley supported a bizarre little fascist named william dudley pelly pelly's platform called for the re-enslavement of black americans the segregation and sterilization of jewish citizens and the overthrowing of the u.s government to form a white christian state controlled by corporations i would like to maybe say one little criticism of mr pelly i just want to say i also don't like his haircut it's not appropriate it's not appropriate for the presidency and you know and thank god we don't have anybody there trying to overthrow the u.s government to replace it with a white christian state controlled by corporations thank christ we don't have to worry about that anymore i'm honestly surprised he lost well pelly was also a dedicated occultist who published a newsletter called valor which was a mishmash of articles on christianity theosophy ufo sightings he was actually a very early ufo proponent and he also talked a lot about an esoteric philosophy of his own creation that he called soul craft interesting pelly however did not do well in the election and he was eventually charged with sedition in 1942 because you know by that point we were at war with the nazis yeah we hated it yeah and he was jailed for eight years wow that could get you in trouble then huh uh used to but concerning brinkley's downfall the bad times for brinkley began with the death of his father and his wife and he was jailed for eight years when he was chased out of del rio by a rival quack surgeon a young buck this is how you come this is how it goes down lions man yeah man yeah fucking james middlebrook swooped into town and offered the same fraudulent sexual rejuvenation surgeries as brinkley but he offered it for a fifth of the price i'll also reverse the direction of your vagina i could take a vagina and switch it from north to south to south to north the one might think it'd be useless to have the clitoris down low but you'd be surprised at what advantages it might have the clitoris is a distraction to making a child have you ever wanted to enjoy shitting a little more the poo-poo rubs on the on the non-new bump that's what we call it here in the science brigade over here it's not a lot but it's a little bit well middlebrook he also knew that he was a little bit older than him and he was a little bit older than him and he knew who he was dealing with i mean he he's a man after brinkley's own image so middlebrook showed up with his own hired goons he engaged brinkley in full gang warfare on the streets of del rio middlebrook's goons would hang around brinkley's hospital and they would encourage patients to go to middlebrook's hospital and say why don't you go over to middlebrook's hospital says it's fifth of the price why are you going to brinkley i don't think you should go to brinkley yeah a lot of the patients that go there to get their fucking legs broke oh well yeah i should go i should go to middlebrook but brinkley then hired goons of his own to chase off middlebrook's goons but then after several months of street fights in which the locals actually began taking sides and joining in brinkley gave up on del rio gave up on radio and left town with his tail between his legs i just got to say it's just a the worst part of this is admitting he's a better doctor than i he beat me brinkley's misfortunes however were only starting morris fishbine was not at all satisfied that brinkley was defeated so he released yet another article outlining all of brinkley's crimes and frauds i will do what i do best a long and pointed list of problems in two pots that's it read the second article it came out a month later to get the complete picture a stern letter is what defeats fascism that's the thing brinkley could have ignored the paper very few people read it but brinkley made a massive miscalculation i work hard on this i know you do i know you do on that article it took me several days to list all the crimes but when brinkley sued fishbine for libel for this article he felt the full force of what we now know as the strisand effect brinkley's lawsuit not only drew the public's attention to this formally obscure article but it also forced brinkley into court where he was also forced to defend his own fraudulent practices and guess what he couldn't he couldn't defend anything he admitted that the goat glands sometimes just rotted away inside a human's body he admitted that the goat gland surgery had always been a fraud and it could not do by itself what it was supposed to do and so he was forced to defend his own fraudulent practices upon dozens of patients who came through and gave testimonies fishbine of course testified he had his moment in the sun jury deliberated for just four hours before finding in morris fishbine's favor no one's ever chosen me that's all this is the where you're going no i did this where you're going well effectively brinkley was legally declared to be a quack and a charlatan which opened up a flood of malpractice fraud and wrongful death lawsuits hundreds of cases were filed against brinkley but brinkley's actions actually had far-reaching consequences consequences that we feel today morris fishbinds two decade long pursuit of brinkley resulted in not only new regulations in american medicine that still exist today but this is why we have nationwide medical licensing standards for doctors they did not exist prior to this it was state by state this is why it's nationwide i love you mr fishbun i would say i do appreciate All of you appreciating me in the future, I would have liked just a little bit of money. Just any of that, if I could. If any money could be sent to Morris, that would help Morris do wonderful things like eat, pay his rent. I don't have many cars. Where are you all going? So, in the end, John Brinkley did change the way medicine was practiced in the United States, but it was changed specifically to try and protect Americans from doctors like John Brinkley. Now, despite Brinkley's massive earnings, his entire empire collapsed within just a few years as a result of both the hundreds of lawsuits and the ridiculous amount of spending that he had done when he was still making money. By the early 1940s, Brinkley had declared bankruptcy. He was even set to go to jail. He was even set to go on trial for mail fraud in April of 1942. That's how fucking low the post office was coming after him. But in August of 1941, Brinkley went to a hospital in San Antonio after he began feeling poorly. A blood clot had lodged itself in his leg, so the doctors were forced to amputate Brinkley's leg then and there. Before we do that, have you thought about putting some balls in it? Just for once. Just for old time's sake. Yeah. I've been trying to do this whole time without making a single I-wanna-dip-my-balls-in-it joke. Oh, yeah. Well, Brinkley rapidly lost weight after that and suffered a heart attack at the end of 1941. After lingering on for a few more months, Brinkley died in May of 1942, broke and disgraced. But to perhaps answer the question as to how John Brinkley was able to swindle so much money out of so many Americans for such a long period of time, I think one question. Quote, From one former patient who gave testimony to Morris Fishbein says it all. About Brinkley, the former patient said, Quote, I know he was bilking me, but I liked him anyways. That's actually very sad. I just think that should be underneath the eagle on the dollar. Yeah, actually, when we re-release like a Sacagawea dollar, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that's the story of John Brinkley. That's great, dude. I'm sad we hadn't done this earlier. I fucking love this story. I love Flim Flam Man. I love him so much. I love chicanery. I love fake medicine. It's my favorite thing in the world. I want to do it. Yeah. I'm jealous of John Brinkley. No, but you can't do it. No, I can. You can't. Well, yeah, you just put goat balls in people. I'll take some. Okay. First customer. Yeah, first customer. First customer. All right. All right. I newsed. I knowed he was bilking. He was bilking me. I want him. Well, guys, that was great. Good work, Marcus. Go to our patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. Good work, Joel, as well, a researcher. Rachel also worked on this one. Rachel was great. I can't wait until she comes back. She is out there raising a child. Raising a child. So welcome to our Patreon. Go listen to us ad free or see the movie stories is over on Patreon. Also see last stream on the left live every Tuesday, 5 p.m. PSD. Go look at LP on the left. And all the socials for whatever the fuck. Go to last podcast on the left dot com for our live shows. Right now, Eddie and I are going on the road a couple more times this year. Yeah, we're going to be Portland. Maine is sold out on November 14th and November 15th. Check us out at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington, Vermont. After that, Henry and I are going to be out in Pasadena at the Ice House doing Ed Larson and Friends. Henry's going to be hosting. It's me and Henry and Billy Wayne Davis, Carmen Legala. And the wonderful Pat Parker. After that, Henry and I are going to be in Iowa City on December 11th at the Englert Civic Center. And on December 12th, we're going to be the Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri. Come check us out there. And the very following night, I'm going to go do some stand up in St. Louis at Helium Comedy Club. Check that out. I also got dates next year in Nashville, Rochester, Albany, Fort Lauderdale, et cetera. Go to EddieTunes.com to get your bullshit. Fuck yeah, dude. Hail Satan. Helgeen. I'm going to. Hail Bonnie Raitt. I saw her last night, and it was fucking lovely. Oh, that sounds nice. Yeah, it was really. It was truly wonderful. She did a Nirvana cover. Which song? Rate Me. Wow. I know she fucking. Rate Me. He's doing a joke. Bonnie Raitt. He's doing a fucking ass joke. Rate Me. Fucking asshole. He's been thinking about this the whole time. He hasn't heard a word. He really hasn't. All he's thinking about is that joke, Eddie. I love talking about Gary Ridgeway again. I want to go home. Don't make me go fucking suck on some fish blood or something. Rate Me. Rate. That's good.