John R. Brinkley
Encyclopedia
John Romulus Brinkley was a controversial American medical doctor who experimented with xenotransplantation
of goat
glands into humans as a means of curing male impotence in clinics across several states, and an advertising and radio pioneer
who began the era of Mexican
border blaster
radio. Though he was stripped of his license to practice medicine in some states, Brinkley, a crowd favorite and natural showman, still launched two campaigns for Kansas governor, one of which was nearly successful. Brinkley's rise to fame and fortune was as precipitous as his eventual fall; at the height of his career he had amassed millions of dollars and fancy cars, and yet died sick and nearly penniless, as a result of the large number of malpractice, wrongful death and fraud suits brought against him.
and served as a medic for the Confederate States Army
during the American Civil War
. Father Brinkley's first marriage was annulled
because he was underage. After he reached adulthood, he married four more times, and outlived each of his young, pretty wives. In 1870, at the age of 42, he married Sarah T. Mingus. Later, the 24-year-old niece of Mingus moved into the house: Sarah Candice Burnett. The family called Brinkley's wife "Sally" to differentiate between the two Sarahs. Sarah Burnett gave birth to John Romulus Brinkley in the town of Beta, in Jackson County, North Carolina
, naming her son after his father, and after Romulus
, the mythical twin suckled by wolves. Sarah Burnett died of pneumonia
and tuberculosis
when Brinkley was five. Sarah T. "Aunt Sally" and John Brinkley moved with the young boy to East LaPorte within the same county, near the Tuckasegee River. The family had little money and lived close to the earth. John Richard Brinkley died when his son was ten years old. Young Brinkley attended a one-room log cabin school in the Tuckasegee area, held each year during three or four months of winter. There, Brinkley met Sally Margaret Wike, the daughter of a well-off school board member. When Brinkley was 13, the school term was lengthened, and a better teacher engaged. Brinkley finished his studies at 16 and began to work carrying mail between local towns, and to learn how to use a telegraph. He wished, however, to become a doctor.
to work for Western Union
, after which he moved to New Jersey
to work at one, then another, railway company. In late 1906, he returned home to Aunt Sally after hearing that she was unwell. She died on December 25, 1906. Afterward, he was comforted by Sally Wike, now 22 and a year older than Brinkley. They married on January 27, 1907 in Sylva, North Carolina
. They traveled around posing as Quaker doctors, giving rural towns a medicine show
where they hawked a patent medicine
. Brinkley's next move was to Knoxville, Tennessee
, where he played right-hand man, helping hawk virility "tonics" with a man named Dr. Burke.
In 1907, Brinkley settled with his wife in Chicago, where they celebrated the birth of a daughter on November 5 – Wanda Marion Brinkley. The new father enrolled at Bennett Medical College, an unaccredited school with questionable curricula focused on Eclectic medicine
. Brinkley worked for Western Union as a telegrapher at night and attended classes during the day, while debts mounted from tuition, the cost of raising a family, and from Sally's self-centered whims. In 1908, the Brinkleys buried an infant son who had lived only three days.
At school, Brinkley was introduced to the study of glandular extracts and their effects on the human system. He determined that this new field would help move his career forward. After two years of studies, and ever-deeper debts, Brinkley doubled his summer workload by taking two shifts at Western Union, but came home one day to find his wife and daughter gone. Sally filed for divorce and child support, but after two months of payments, Brinkley kidnapped his daughter and fled with her to Canada. Sally Brinkley, unable to obtain an extradition
order from Canada, dismissed her suit for alimony and child support, allowing Brinkley to return to Chicago with the child. The couple reunited in their rocky marriage.
In 1911, before Brinkley was finished with his third year of studies, Sally left him again, and bore him another daughter, Erna Maxine Brinkley, on July 11, 1911 back home in the Tuckasegee area. Brinkley left Chicago and his unpaid tuition bills to return to North Carolina and join his family. There, he began working as an "undergraduate physician", but failed to establish himself. He moved his family around to different towns in Florida and North Carolina, "packing up and going all the time from one place to another".
. He was unable to pay Bennett Medical College the tuition he owed them, so they refused to forward his scholastic records to any of the medical schools that Brinkley had approached. Instead, Brinkley bought a certificate from a shady diploma mill
known as the Kansas City Eclectic Medical University
and returned home. On February 11, 1913 his daughter Naomi Beryl Brinkley was born. The family of five immediately moved to New York City, and shortly to Chicago. When Brinkley refused to give up his goal of becoming a doctor, Sally Brinkley left him one final time, taking the three girls home to North Carolina.
Brinkley set up a storefront business in Greenville, South Carolina
with a man named Crawford. The two opened their shop as the "Greenville Electro Medic Doctors", and placed advertisements to attract men who were concerned about their manly vigor. They injected colored water into their patients at $25 a shot ($ in current value), telling them it was Salvarsan
or "electric medicine from Germany". After two months, the partners hurriedly left town with unpaid rent, utility bills and debts for clothing and pharmaceutical supplies. The local newspaper reported that the duo left about 30 to 40 local merchants with unpaid checks. They ended up where Crawford had once lived, in Memphis, Tennessee
.
, even though he was still married to Sally Brinkley. Minnie and John Brinkley honeymooned in Kansas City
, Denver, Pocatello
and Knoxville
. Brinkley was arrested in Knoxville and extradited to Greenville where he was put in jail for practicing medicine without a license and for writing bad checks. Brinkley told the sheriff that it was all Crawford's fault, and gave investigators enough information that they were able to nab Crawford in Pocatello. The two former partners met again in jail.
Brinkley and Crawford decided to settle out of court with Greenville's angry merchants for a sum of several thousand dollars, most of which Crawford paid. Brinkley's new father-in-law paid Brinkley's bail, but only contributed $200 to his fraudulent debt settlement ($ in current value.). Brinkley rejoined Minnie Brinkley in Memphis. There, Sally Brinkley confronted the couple, informing Minnie Brinkley that her husband was a bigamist
. Minnie and John Brinkley moved to Judsonia, Arkansas
, where he again obtained an "undergraduate license" to practice medicine, advertising his specialty as "diseases of women and children". He made little profit, and joined the Army Reserve Medical Corps.
Brinkley accepted an offer to take over the office of another doctor who was moving out of state. Brinkley began to turn a modest profit, and was finally able to pay Bennett Medical University the amount owed for tuition. In October 1914, the Brinkleys moved to Kansas City where he enrolled at that city's Eclectic Medical University to finish out his last year remaining of the education he started at Bennett. After studying the irritations and enlargements of the prostate gland in elderly men, and paying the university $100 ($ in current value), Brinkley graduated on May 7, 1915. His diploma from Eclectic allowed him to practice medicine in eight states. While in Kansas City, Brinkley took a job as the doctor for the Swift and Company plant, patching minor wounds and studying animal physiology. It was here that Brinkley learned that popular opinion held that the healthiest animal slaughtered at the plant was the goat, something that would prove pivotal to his later medical career.
To resolve the possibility of his bigamy being exposed, Minnie pushed Brinkley to file for divorce from Sally, which he did in December 1915. To prevent the court from inquiring of Sally directly, he wrote that they had been married in New York City, and that he did not know her current place of residence. The divorce was finalized on February 21, 1916. Four days later, Minnie and Brinkley were married again, this time in Liberty, Missouri
. Brinkley had not waited the required six months from divorce to subsequent remarriage.
In 1917, Brinkley, now an Army Reservist, was called up for service during World War I
. However, he only served a little over two months, most of the duration of which he was sick with a nervous breakdown, before being discharged. In October of the same year, Brinkley and his wife moved to Milford, Kansas
after having spotted a newspaper ad saying the town needed a doctor.
As recounted in the biography that Brinkley had commissioned, he struck upon the idea of transplanting goat testicles into men when a patient came to him to ask if he could fix someone who was "sexually weak". Brinkley responded by joking that the patient would have no problem if he had "a pair of those buck [goat] glands in you". The patient then begged Brinkley to try the operation, which Brinkley did, for $150. (The patient's son later told the The Kansas City Star
that Brinkley had in fact offered to pay his father "handsomely" if he'd go along with the experiment.)
At his clinic, Brinkley began to perform more operations he claimed would restore male virility and fertility through implanting the testicular glands of goats in his male patients at a cost of $750 per operation ($ in current value). Following one of his crude operations, the body of a patient would typically absorb the goat gonads as foreign matter. The organs were never accepted as part of the body since they were simply placed into the human male testicle sac or the abdomen of women, near the ovaries. Unsurprisingly, in light of his questionable medical training (75 percent completion at a less-than-reputable medical school), frequency of operating while intoxicated and less-than sterile operating environments, some patients suffered from infection, and an undetermined number died. Brinkley would be sued more than a dozen times for wrongful death
between 1930 and 1941.
Soon after Brinkley opened up shop, he scored an advertising coup that made major newspapers come calling: His first goat gland transplantation patient's wife gave birth to a baby boy. Brinkley began promoting goat glands as a cure for 27 ailments, ranging from dementia to emphysema to flatulence. He started a direct mail blitz and hired an advertising agent, who helped Brinkley portray his treatments as turning hapless men into "the ram that am with every lamb". His burst of publicity—and his stratospheric claims—attracted the attention of the American Medical Association
, which sent an agent to the clinic to investigate undercover. The agent found a woman hobbling around Brinkley's clinic who had been given goat ovaries as a cure for a spinal cord tumor. From then on, Brinkley was on the AMA's radar, including catching the eye of the doctor that would eventually be responsible for his downfall, Morris Fishbein
, who made his career exposing medical frauds.
At the same time, other doctors were also experimenting with gland transplantation, including Serge Voronoff
, who had become known for grafting monkey testicles into human men. In 1920 Voronoff demonstrated his technique before several other doctors at a hospital in Chicago, at which Brinkley showed up uninvited. Though Brinkley was barred at the door, his appearance elevated his profile in the press, which eventually resulted in his own demonstration at a hospital in Chicago. Brinkley transplanted goat testicles into 34 patients, including a judge, an alderman, a society matron and the chancellor of the University of Chicago Law School
, all while the press looked on. His public profile grew, and his gland business in Milford continued at a brisk pace.
In 1922, Brinkley traveled to Los Angeles
at the invitation of Harry Chandler
, owner of the Los Angeles Times
, who challenged Brinkley to transplant goat testicles into one of his editors. If the operation was a success, Chandler wrote, he would make Brinkley the "most famous surgeon in America", and if not then he should consider himself "damned". California didn't recognize Brinkley's license to practice medicine from the Eclectic Medical University, but Chandler pulled some strings and got him a 30-day permit. The operation was judged a success, and Brinkley received his promised attention in Chandler's paper, which sent many new customers Brinkley's way, including some Hollywood film stars. Brinkley was so taken with the city—and all the money it represented in the form of potential patients—that he began making plans to relocate his clinic there. But his hopes were dashed when the California medical board denied his application for a permanent license to practice medicine, having found his resume "riddled with lies and discrepancies" (most of which were discovered and pointed out to the board by Fishbein). Brinkley returned to Kansas undaunted and began to expand his clinic in Milford.
deriding Brinkley and his treatments as quackery. His gland business made more money than ever, and had begun attracting patients from around the globe.
Brinkley spoke for hours on end each day on the radio, primarily promoting his goat gland treatments. He variously cajoled, shamed and appealed to men's (and women's) egos, and to their desire to be more sexually active. In between Brinkley's own advertisements, his new station featured a variety of entertainment including military bands, French lessons, astrological forecasts, storytelling and exotica such as native Hawaii
an songs, and American roots music
including old-time string band, gospel and early country.
The advertising boost his radio station gave him was enormous, and Milford benefited as well; Brinkley paid for a new sewage system and sidewalks, installed electricity, built a bandstand and apartments for his patients and employees, as well as a new post office to handle all of his mail. He was named an "admiral" in the Kansas Navy and sponsored a hometown baseball team called the Brinkley Goats.
Eager for better credentials, in 1925 Brinkley traveled to Europe searching for honorary degrees. After being rebuffed by several institutes in the United Kingdom
, Brinkley found a willing suitor in the university in Pavia, Italy. Fishbein and Brinkley's former teacher, Max Thorek
, heard about the degree and pressured the Italian government to rescind it. Benito Mussolini
himself revoked the degree, though Brinkley claimed it until he died. Fishbein's interest in putting Brinkley out of business grew and he wrote more articles featuring stories about people who had grown sick or died after seeing Brinkley. But the AMA journal's readership was mostly restricted to other doctors, while Brinkley's radio station poured directly into peoples' homes every day.
After his birth on September 3, 1927, the tiny voice of Brinkley's son John Richard Brinkley III, nicknamed "Johnny Boy", was heard on the radio program. Noting the baby's arrival after 14 years of marriage, some observers wondered if Brinkley had taken his own goat gland treatment. The Brinkleys denied such rumors.
problems, and expanded his business again. He also started a new radio segment called "Medical Question Box", where he would read listeners' medical complaints over the air and suggest proprietary treatments. These treatments were only available at a network of pharmacies that were members of the "Brinkley Pharmaceutical Association". These affiliated pharmacies sold Brinkley's over the counter medicines at highly inflated prices, sent a portion of their profit back to Brinkley and kept the rest. It is estimated that this generated $14,000 in profit weekly for Brinkley, or about $ per year in current value. Reports of patients who took Brinkley's suggested treatments showing up sick at another doctor's office began to grow, and eventually Merck & Co.
pharmaceuticals, whose medicines Brinkley routinely misprescribed, requested Fishbein take action; the AMA responded that they had no power over Brinkley, save to try to inform the public.
The Kansas City Star, which owned a radio station that competed with Brinkley's, ran an unfavorable series of reports on him. By 1930, when the Kansas Medical Board held a formal hearing to decide whether Brinkley's medical license should be revoked, Brinkley had signed death certificates for 42 people, many of whom were not sick when they showed up at his clinic. It is unclear how many more of Brinkley's patients may have become ill or later died elsewhere. The medical board revoked his license, stating that Brinkley "has performed an organized charlatanism ... quite beyond the invention of the humble mountebank".
Six months after losing his medical license, the Federal Radio Commission
refused to renew his station’s broadcasting license, finding that Brinkley's broadcasts were mostly advertising, which violated international treaties, that he broadcast obscene material, and that his Medical Question Box series was "contrary to the public interest". He sued the commission, but the courts upheld the revocation and the case Brinkley v. FRC became a landmark case in broadcast law.
, a political position that would enable him to appoint his own members to the medical board and thus regain his right to practice medicine in the state. He kicked off his candidacy just three days after he lost his medical license, using his radio station to help his campaign. At his side was KFKB's biggest country-music star, Roy Faulkner, who took to the stage with guitar and hat in hand. Brinkley campaigned on a vague program of public works (a state lake in every county), education (free textbooks for public schoolchildren and increased educational opportunities for blacks), lower taxes, and old-age pensions. He appealed to the immigrant vote by putting German- and Swedish-speaking people on the air at KFKB. He enlisted a pilot with his own plane (which Brinkley dubbed The Romancer) to deliver Brinkley in grand style at his campaign rallies. In short, Brinkley was a master of the publicity stunt; when a prominent newspaper reporter ran an article critical of his qualifications to run a state, Brinkley sent him a goat.
His campaign was conducted as an independent write-in candidate, because he waited to declare his candidacy until September, after the ballots had already been printed. Three days before the election, the Kansas attorney general (who had prosecuted Brinkley before the medical board) announced that the rules surrounding write-in candidates had changed, and that the doctor's name could only be written in one specific way for the vote to count (as J. R. Brinkley). As a write-in candidate, he received more than 180,000 votes (29.5 percent of the vote) and lost to Harry Hines Woodring
, later Franklin Delano Roosevelt's secretary of war. An article published at the time in The Des Moines Register estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 ballots were disqualified in this manner. Woodring later admitted that had those votes counted, Brinkley would have won.
Brinkley ran again in 1932 as an Independent, receiving 244,607 votes (30.6 percent of the vote), losing to Republican Alf Landon
, later Republican nominee for president.
His prospects for success in Kansas destroyed, Brinkley sold KFKB to an insurance company and decided to move closer to the Mexican border, where he could operate a high-power radio station with impunity. Though he could no longer practice medicine in Kansas, he kept his Milford clinic open and put two of his protégés in charge. Wooed by the prospect of being a big fish in a very small pond, Brinkley relocated to sleepy Del Rio, Texas
, which lay just across a bridge from Mexico.
" across the bridge from Del Rio in Villa Acuña, Coahuila (since renamed Ciudad Acuña
). As construction got underway, Fishbein and the U.S. State Department desperately searched for a way to shut Brinkley down. Under heavy pressure from the State Department, the Mexican government halted construction on XER-AM, but it was only temporary. Within weeks, construction resumed and soon two 300 feet (91.4 m) towers reached into the sky. XER, at 840 kilohertz on the AM
dial, radiated by a sky wave antenna, made its first broadcast in October 1931. Brinkley called it the "Sunshine Station Between the Nations".
Brinkley used his new border blaster to resume his campaign for governor by using the telephone to call in his broadcasts to the transmitter. This approach did not work, and he lost yet another political campaign; he would lose again in 1934. Though Brinkley's American radio license had been revoked, XER's signal was so strong that it could still be heard in Kansas. In 1932, the Mexican government allowed Brinkley to up his wattage to 150,000 watts. Several months later, Brinkley was allowed to increase to one million watts, "making XER far and away the most powerful radio station on the planet" that, on a clear night, could be heard as far away as Canada. According to accounts of the time, the signal was so strong that it turned on car headlights, made bedsprings hum, and caused broadcasts to bleed into telephone conversations. Local residents didn't even need a radio to hear Brinkley's station; ranchers reported that they received it through their metal fences and in their dental appliances.
Brinkley continued his old radio format of medical advice keyed to advertising products. Male listeners were offered an array of expensive concoctions which included Mercurochrome
injections and pills, all designed to help them regain their sexual prowess. At the clinic in the hotel where he lived he also performed prostate operations. He also began selling airtime to other advertisers (at $1,700 an hour, $ in current value), giving rise to new hucksters shilling products such as "Crazy Water Crystals", "genuine simulated" diamonds, life insurance, and an array of religious paraphernalia, including what was purported to be autographed pictures of Jesus Christ. Brinkley also continued packing his radio lineup with up-and-coming country and roots singers whose careers his radio station helped launch (including Patsy Montana
, Red Foley
, Gene Autry
, Jimmie Rodgers
, The Carter Family, and others). Del Rio became known as "Hillbilly Hollywood".
When the FRC banned what they called "spooks" (mind readers, fortune-tellers and other mystics) from broadcasting on U.S. radio in 1932, many of them followed Brinkley's model, opening their own border blasters in Mexico. By 1932, 11 such stations had opened, including XENT, XERB, XELO, XEG and XEPN.
Brinkley was still shuttling back and forth from Milford to Del Rio, often broadcasting from XER over the telephone. But in 1932, Congress passed a law outlawing this practice, known as the Brinkley Act
. Unfazed, Brinkley began using some of the first "electrical transcriptions" — what today would be called pre-recordings — to circumvent the law. Around this time, Brinkley decided to sever the rest of his ties to Kansas, closing down his hospital there and opening a new one in Del Rio, which took up three floors of the Roswell Hotel, where he lived with his wife.
In 1934, Mexico revoked Brinkley's broadcast license, the result of pressure from the United States. Soldiers from the Mexican army arrived at the station's doorstep to shut him down, and for a time he had to broadcast from nearby XEPN, located in Piedras Negras, Coahuila
.
Though Brinkley continued to perform the occasional goat gland transplant, in Texas his practice shifted mostly to performing slightly modified vasectomies
and prostate "rejuvenations" (for which he charged up to $1,000 per operation ($ in current value), and prescribed his own proprietary medicine for after-care). His business, fueled by radio advertisements and speeches, continued to thrive, and he opened another clinic in San Juan, Texas
specializing in the colon. By 1936, Brinkley had amassed enough wealth to build a mansion for himself and his wife on 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land. Brinkley boasted a stable of a dozen Cadillacs, a greenhouse, a foaming fountain garden surrounded by 8,000 bushes, exotic animals imported from the Galapagos Islands
, and a swimming pool with a 10 feet (3 m) diving tower. Brinkley continued living high in Del Rio, until in 1938 a rival doctor began cutting into Brinkley's business by offering similar procedures much more cheaply. When Del Rio's city elders refused to put the competitor out of business, Brinkley closed up shop and reopened in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas
with another hospital at what is now Marylake Monastery
. His competition from Del Rio opened a new cancer center in Eureka Springs, Arkansas
, about 150 miles (241.4 km) northwest of Little Rock.
began investigating him for tax fraud. He declared bankruptcy in 1941, the same year the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement on allocating radio bandwidth and shut down XERA.
Soon after his bankruptcy the United States Post Office Department
began investigating him for mail fraud, and Brinkley became a patient himself, having suffered three heart attacks and the amputation of one of his legs due to poor circulation. On May 26, 1942, Brinkley died penniless of heart failure in San Antonio; the mail fraud case had not yet come to trial. He was later buried in Memphis, Tennessee
.
His house, commonly called the Brinkley Mansion, still stands today at 512 Qualia Drive in Del Rio and has been designated Texas Historic Landmark number 13015.
Xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation , is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenografts or xenotransplants...
of goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
glands into humans as a means of curing male impotence in clinics across several states, and an advertising and radio pioneer
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...
who began the era of Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
border blaster
Border blaster
A border blaster is a licensed commercial radio station that transmits at very high power from one nation to another. Border blasters should not be confused with international broadcast stations...
radio. Though he was stripped of his license to practice medicine in some states, Brinkley, a crowd favorite and natural showman, still launched two campaigns for Kansas governor, one of which was nearly successful. Brinkley's rise to fame and fortune was as precipitous as his eventual fall; at the height of his career he had amassed millions of dollars and fancy cars, and yet died sick and nearly penniless, as a result of the large number of malpractice, wrongful death and fraud suits brought against him.
Early life
Brinkley was born to John Richard Brinkley, a poor mountain man who practiced medicine in North CarolinaNorth Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
and served as a medic for the Confederate States Army
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army was the army of the Confederate States of America while the Confederacy existed during the American Civil War. On February 8, 1861, delegates from the seven Deep South states which had already declared their secession from the United States of America adopted the...
during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. Father Brinkley's first marriage was annulled
Annulment
Annulment is a legal procedure for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almost as if it had never taken place...
because he was underage. After he reached adulthood, he married four more times, and outlived each of his young, pretty wives. In 1870, at the age of 42, he married Sarah T. Mingus. Later, the 24-year-old niece of Mingus moved into the house: Sarah Candice Burnett. The family called Brinkley's wife "Sally" to differentiate between the two Sarahs. Sarah Burnett gave birth to John Romulus Brinkley in the town of Beta, in Jackson County, North Carolina
Jackson County, North Carolina
Jackson County is a county located in the southwest of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of 2010, the population was 40,271. Since 1913 its county seat has been Sylva, replacing Webster.-History:...
, naming her son after his father, and after Romulus
Romulus
- People:* Romulus and Remus, the mythical founders of Rome* Romulus Augustulus, the last Western Roman Emperor* Valerius Romulus , deified son of the Roman emperor Maxentius* Romulus , son of the Western Roman emperor Anthemius...
, the mythical twin suckled by wolves. Sarah Burnett died of pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
when Brinkley was five. Sarah T. "Aunt Sally" and John Brinkley moved with the young boy to East LaPorte within the same county, near the Tuckasegee River. The family had little money and lived close to the earth. John Richard Brinkley died when his son was ten years old. Young Brinkley attended a one-room log cabin school in the Tuckasegee area, held each year during three or four months of winter. There, Brinkley met Sally Margaret Wike, the daughter of a well-off school board member. When Brinkley was 13, the school term was lengthened, and a better teacher engaged. Brinkley finished his studies at 16 and began to work carrying mail between local towns, and to learn how to use a telegraph. He wished, however, to become a doctor.
Family and education
As a telegrapher, Brinkley went to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to work for Western Union
Western Union
The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado. Up until 2006, Western Union was the best-known U.S...
, after which he moved to New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
to work at one, then another, railway company. In late 1906, he returned home to Aunt Sally after hearing that she was unwell. She died on December 25, 1906. Afterward, he was comforted by Sally Wike, now 22 and a year older than Brinkley. They married on January 27, 1907 in Sylva, North Carolina
Sylva, North Carolina
Sylva is an incorporated town located in central Jackson County, in the Great Smoky Mountains of Western North Carolina, United States of America. As of the 2010 census, the town had a total population of 2,588. It is the county seat, having taken over from nearby Webster in 1913.-Geography:Sylva...
. They traveled around posing as Quaker doctors, giving rural towns a medicine show
Medicine show
Medicine shows were traveling horse and wagon teams which peddled "miracle cure" medications and other products between various entertainment acts. Their precise origins unknown, medicine shows were common in the 19th century United States...
where they hawked a patent medicine
Patent medicine
Patent medicine refers to medical compounds of questionable effectiveness sold under a variety of names and labels. The term "patent medicine" is somewhat of a misnomer because, in most cases, although many of the products were trademarked, they were never patented...
. Brinkley's next move was to Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, where he played right-hand man, helping hawk virility "tonics" with a man named Dr. Burke.
In 1907, Brinkley settled with his wife in Chicago, where they celebrated the birth of a daughter on November 5 – Wanda Marion Brinkley. The new father enrolled at Bennett Medical College, an unaccredited school with questionable curricula focused on Eclectic medicine
Eclectic medicine
Eclectic medicine was a branch of American medicine which made use of botanical remedies along with other substances and physical therapy practices, popular in the latter half of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries....
. Brinkley worked for Western Union as a telegrapher at night and attended classes during the day, while debts mounted from tuition, the cost of raising a family, and from Sally's self-centered whims. In 1908, the Brinkleys buried an infant son who had lived only three days.
At school, Brinkley was introduced to the study of glandular extracts and their effects on the human system. He determined that this new field would help move his career forward. After two years of studies, and ever-deeper debts, Brinkley doubled his summer workload by taking two shifts at Western Union, but came home one day to find his wife and daughter gone. Sally filed for divorce and child support, but after two months of payments, Brinkley kidnapped his daughter and fled with her to Canada. Sally Brinkley, unable to obtain an extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
order from Canada, dismissed her suit for alimony and child support, allowing Brinkley to return to Chicago with the child. The couple reunited in their rocky marriage.
In 1911, before Brinkley was finished with his third year of studies, Sally left him again, and bore him another daughter, Erna Maxine Brinkley, on July 11, 1911 back home in the Tuckasegee area. Brinkley left Chicago and his unpaid tuition bills to return to North Carolina and join his family. There, he began working as an "undergraduate physician", but failed to establish himself. He moved his family around to different towns in Florida and North Carolina, "packing up and going all the time from one place to another".
Diploma mill
In 1912, Brinkley left his family to try to regain the thread of his education, this time in St. Louis, MissouriSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
. He was unable to pay Bennett Medical College the tuition he owed them, so they refused to forward his scholastic records to any of the medical schools that Brinkley had approached. Instead, Brinkley bought a certificate from a shady diploma mill
Diploma mill
A diploma mill is an organization that awards academic degrees and diplomas with substandard or no academic study and without recognition by official educational accrediting bodies. The purchaser can then claim to hold an academic degree, and the organization is motivated by making a profit...
known as the Kansas City Eclectic Medical University
Eclectic Medical University
The Eclectic Medical University was established in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1898. It taught medicine in the style of eclectic medicine, a form of botanical and herbal homeopathy....
and returned home. On February 11, 1913 his daughter Naomi Beryl Brinkley was born. The family of five immediately moved to New York City, and shortly to Chicago. When Brinkley refused to give up his goal of becoming a doctor, Sally Brinkley left him one final time, taking the three girls home to North Carolina.
Brinkley set up a storefront business in Greenville, South Carolina
Greenville, South Carolina
-Law and government:The city of Greenville adopted the Council-Manager form of municipal government in 1976.-History:The area was part of the Cherokee Nation's protected grounds after the Treaty of 1763, which ended the French and Indian War. No White man was allowed to enter, though some families...
with a man named Crawford. The two opened their shop as the "Greenville Electro Medic Doctors", and placed advertisements to attract men who were concerned about their manly vigor. They injected colored water into their patients at $25 a shot ($ in current value), telling them it was Salvarsan
Arsphenamine
Arsphenamine, also known as Salvarsan and 606, is a drug that was used beginning in the 1910s to treat syphilis and trypanosomiasis...
or "electric medicine from Germany". After two months, the partners hurriedly left town with unpaid rent, utility bills and debts for clothing and pharmaceutical supplies. The local newspaper reported that the duo left about 30 to 40 local merchants with unpaid checks. They ended up where Crawford had once lived, in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
.
Second marriage
In Memphis, Brinkley met 21-year-old Minerva Telitha "Minnie" Jones, a friend of Crawford's and the daughter of a local physician. On August 23, 1913, after a four-day courtship, Brinkley and Jones married at the Peabody HotelPeabody Hotel
The Peabody Hotel is a luxury hotel in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee. The hotel is well known for the famous "Peabody Ducks" that live on the hotel rooftop, but which make daily treks to the hotel's lobby in a daily "March of Ducks" celebration.- History :...
, even though he was still married to Sally Brinkley. Minnie and John Brinkley honeymooned in Kansas City
Kansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, Denver, Pocatello
Pocatello, Idaho
Pocatello is the county seat and largest city of Bannock County, with a small portion on the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in neighboring Power County, in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Idaho. It is the principal city of the Pocatello metropolitan area, which encompasses all of Bannock...
and Knoxville
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
. Brinkley was arrested in Knoxville and extradited to Greenville where he was put in jail for practicing medicine without a license and for writing bad checks. Brinkley told the sheriff that it was all Crawford's fault, and gave investigators enough information that they were able to nab Crawford in Pocatello. The two former partners met again in jail.
Brinkley and Crawford decided to settle out of court with Greenville's angry merchants for a sum of several thousand dollars, most of which Crawford paid. Brinkley's new father-in-law paid Brinkley's bail, but only contributed $200 to his fraudulent debt settlement ($ in current value.). Brinkley rejoined Minnie Brinkley in Memphis. There, Sally Brinkley confronted the couple, informing Minnie Brinkley that her husband was a bigamist
Bigamy
In cultures that practice marital monogamy, bigamy is the act of entering into a marriage with one person while still legally married to another. Bigamy is a crime in most western countries, and when it occurs in this context often neither the first nor second spouse is aware of the other...
. Minnie and John Brinkley moved to Judsonia, Arkansas
Judsonia, Arkansas
Judsonia is a city in White County, Arkansas, United States. Rickey Veach is the current mayor. The population was 1,982 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Judsonia is located at ....
, where he again obtained an "undergraduate license" to practice medicine, advertising his specialty as "diseases of women and children". He made little profit, and joined the Army Reserve Medical Corps.
Brinkley accepted an offer to take over the office of another doctor who was moving out of state. Brinkley began to turn a modest profit, and was finally able to pay Bennett Medical University the amount owed for tuition. In October 1914, the Brinkleys moved to Kansas City where he enrolled at that city's Eclectic Medical University to finish out his last year remaining of the education he started at Bennett. After studying the irritations and enlargements of the prostate gland in elderly men, and paying the university $100 ($ in current value), Brinkley graduated on May 7, 1915. His diploma from Eclectic allowed him to practice medicine in eight states. While in Kansas City, Brinkley took a job as the doctor for the Swift and Company plant, patching minor wounds and studying animal physiology. It was here that Brinkley learned that popular opinion held that the healthiest animal slaughtered at the plant was the goat, something that would prove pivotal to his later medical career.
To resolve the possibility of his bigamy being exposed, Minnie pushed Brinkley to file for divorce from Sally, which he did in December 1915. To prevent the court from inquiring of Sally directly, he wrote that they had been married in New York City, and that he did not know her current place of residence. The divorce was finalized on February 21, 1916. Four days later, Minnie and Brinkley were married again, this time in Liberty, Missouri
Liberty, Missouri
Liberty is a city in Clay County, Missouri and is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. At the 2007 population estimate, the city population was 29,993...
. Brinkley had not waited the required six months from divorce to subsequent remarriage.
In 1917, Brinkley, now an Army Reservist, was called up for service during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. However, he only served a little over two months, most of the duration of which he was sick with a nervous breakdown, before being discharged. In October of the same year, Brinkley and his wife moved to Milford, Kansas
Milford, Kansas
Milford is a city in Geary County, Kansas, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 530. It is part of the Manhattan, Kansas Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:Milford is located at...
after having spotted a newspaper ad saying the town needed a doctor.
Goat gland transplantation
In 1918, Brinkley opened a 16-room clinic in Milford, where he won over the locals immediately by paying good wages, invigorating the local economy and making house calls on patients afflicted with the virulent and deadly outbreak of the 1918 flu pandemic. For all his later infamy as a charlatan, accounts of his success at nursing flu victims back to health, and the lengths to which he went to treat them, were resoundingly positive.As recounted in the biography that Brinkley had commissioned, he struck upon the idea of transplanting goat testicles into men when a patient came to him to ask if he could fix someone who was "sexually weak". Brinkley responded by joking that the patient would have no problem if he had "a pair of those buck [goat] glands in you". The patient then begged Brinkley to try the operation, which Brinkley did, for $150. (The patient's son later told the The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star
The Kansas City Star is a McClatchy newspaper based in Kansas City, Missouri, in the United States. Published since 1880, the paper is the recipient of eight Pulitzer Prizes...
that Brinkley had in fact offered to pay his father "handsomely" if he'd go along with the experiment.)
At his clinic, Brinkley began to perform more operations he claimed would restore male virility and fertility through implanting the testicular glands of goats in his male patients at a cost of $750 per operation ($ in current value). Following one of his crude operations, the body of a patient would typically absorb the goat gonads as foreign matter. The organs were never accepted as part of the body since they were simply placed into the human male testicle sac or the abdomen of women, near the ovaries. Unsurprisingly, in light of his questionable medical training (75 percent completion at a less-than-reputable medical school), frequency of operating while intoxicated and less-than sterile operating environments, some patients suffered from infection, and an undetermined number died. Brinkley would be sued more than a dozen times for wrongful death
Wrongful death claim
Wrongful death is a claim in common law jurisdictions against a person who can be held liable for a death. The claim is brought in a civil action, usually by close relatives, as enumerated by statute...
between 1930 and 1941.
Soon after Brinkley opened up shop, he scored an advertising coup that made major newspapers come calling: His first goat gland transplantation patient's wife gave birth to a baby boy. Brinkley began promoting goat glands as a cure for 27 ailments, ranging from dementia to emphysema to flatulence. He started a direct mail blitz and hired an advertising agent, who helped Brinkley portray his treatments as turning hapless men into "the ram that am with every lamb". His burst of publicity—and his stratospheric claims—attracted the attention of the American Medical Association
American Medical Association
The American Medical Association , founded in 1847 and incorporated in 1897, is the largest association of medical doctors and medical students in the United States.-Scope and operations:...
, which sent an agent to the clinic to investigate undercover. The agent found a woman hobbling around Brinkley's clinic who had been given goat ovaries as a cure for a spinal cord tumor. From then on, Brinkley was on the AMA's radar, including catching the eye of the doctor that would eventually be responsible for his downfall, Morris Fishbein
Morris Fishbein
Morris Fishbein M.D. was a physician and the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association from 1924 to 1950. In 1961 he became the founding Editor of Medical World News, a magazine for doctors. In 1970 he endowed the Morris Fishbein Center...
, who made his career exposing medical frauds.
At the same time, other doctors were also experimenting with gland transplantation, including Serge Voronoff
Serge Voronoff
Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff was a French surgeon of Russian extraction who gained fame for his technique of grafting monkey testicle tissue on to the testicles of men for purportedly therapeutic purposes while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The technique brought him a great deal of...
, who had become known for grafting monkey testicles into human men. In 1920 Voronoff demonstrated his technique before several other doctors at a hospital in Chicago, at which Brinkley showed up uninvited. Though Brinkley was barred at the door, his appearance elevated his profile in the press, which eventually resulted in his own demonstration at a hospital in Chicago. Brinkley transplanted goat testicles into 34 patients, including a judge, an alderman, a society matron and the chancellor of the University of Chicago Law School
University of Chicago Law School
The University of Chicago Law School was founded in 1902 as the graduate school of law at the University of Chicago and is among the most prestigious and selective law schools in the world. The U.S. News & World Report currently ranks it fifth among U.S...
, all while the press looked on. His public profile grew, and his gland business in Milford continued at a brisk pace.
In 1922, Brinkley traveled to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
at the invitation of Harry Chandler
Harry Chandler
Harry Chandler was an American newspaper publisher and investor who became owner of the largest real estate empire in the U.S.-Biography:...
, owner of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, who challenged Brinkley to transplant goat testicles into one of his editors. If the operation was a success, Chandler wrote, he would make Brinkley the "most famous surgeon in America", and if not then he should consider himself "damned". California didn't recognize Brinkley's license to practice medicine from the Eclectic Medical University, but Chandler pulled some strings and got him a 30-day permit. The operation was judged a success, and Brinkley received his promised attention in Chandler's paper, which sent many new customers Brinkley's way, including some Hollywood film stars. Brinkley was so taken with the city—and all the money it represented in the form of potential patients—that he began making plans to relocate his clinic there. But his hopes were dashed when the California medical board denied his application for a permanent license to practice medicine, having found his resume "riddled with lies and discrepancies" (most of which were discovered and pointed out to the board by Fishbein). Brinkley returned to Kansas undaunted and began to expand his clinic in Milford.
Brinkley's first radio station
While in Los Angeles, Brinkley toured KHJ, a radio station Chandler owned. He immediately saw the power radio held as an advertising and marketing medium and resolved to build his own to promote his services, even though at the time advertising on public airwaves was very much discouraged. By 1923 he had enough capital to build KFKB ("Kansas First, Kansas Best" or sometimes "Kansas Folks Know Best") using a 1 kilowatt transmitter. That same year, the St. Louis Star published a scathing expose of medical diploma mills, and in 1924 the Kansas City Journal Post followed suit, bringing unwelcome attention Brinkley's way. In July 1924, a grand jury in San Francisco handed down 19 indictments to people responsible for conferring fake medical degrees, and for some doctors who received them; Brinkley was one, due mostly to his questionable application for a California medical license. When agents from California came to arrest Brinkley, the governor of Kansas refused to extradite him because he made the state too much money. Brinkley took to his radio station's airwaves to crow about his victory over the American Medical Association and Fishbein, who by this time had started giving speeches and writing articles for the Journal of the American Medical AssociationJournal of the American Medical Association
The Journal of the American Medical Association is a weekly, peer-reviewed, medical journal, published by the American Medical Association. Beginning in July 2011, the editor in chief will be Howard C. Bauchner, vice chairman of pediatrics at Boston University’s School of Medicine, replacing ...
deriding Brinkley and his treatments as quackery. His gland business made more money than ever, and had begun attracting patients from around the globe.
Brinkley spoke for hours on end each day on the radio, primarily promoting his goat gland treatments. He variously cajoled, shamed and appealed to men's (and women's) egos, and to their desire to be more sexually active. In between Brinkley's own advertisements, his new station featured a variety of entertainment including military bands, French lessons, astrological forecasts, storytelling and exotica such as native Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
an songs, and American roots music
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
including old-time string band, gospel and early country.
The advertising boost his radio station gave him was enormous, and Milford benefited as well; Brinkley paid for a new sewage system and sidewalks, installed electricity, built a bandstand and apartments for his patients and employees, as well as a new post office to handle all of his mail. He was named an "admiral" in the Kansas Navy and sponsored a hometown baseball team called the Brinkley Goats.
Eager for better credentials, in 1925 Brinkley traveled to Europe searching for honorary degrees. After being rebuffed by several institutes in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Brinkley found a willing suitor in the university in Pavia, Italy. Fishbein and Brinkley's former teacher, Max Thorek
Max Thorek
Max Thorek was born in Hungary. His family emigrated to Chicago where Thorek finished his medical degree at Rush Medical College in 1904. Thorek worked in obstetrics, general, and reconstructive surgery. His innovative techniques and practices are still widely used in surgery today...
, heard about the degree and pressured the Italian government to rescind it. Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
himself revoked the degree, though Brinkley claimed it until he died. Fishbein's interest in putting Brinkley out of business grew and he wrote more articles featuring stories about people who had grown sick or died after seeing Brinkley. But the AMA journal's readership was mostly restricted to other doctors, while Brinkley's radio station poured directly into peoples' homes every day.
After his birth on September 3, 1927, the tiny voice of Brinkley's son John Richard Brinkley III, nicknamed "Johnny Boy", was heard on the radio program. Noting the baby's arrival after 14 years of marriage, some observers wondered if Brinkley had taken his own goat gland treatment. The Brinkleys denied such rumors.
Medical Question Box
Brinkley began claiming his goat glands could also help male prostateProstate
The prostate is a compound tubuloalveolar exocrine gland of the male reproductive system in most mammals....
problems, and expanded his business again. He also started a new radio segment called "Medical Question Box", where he would read listeners' medical complaints over the air and suggest proprietary treatments. These treatments were only available at a network of pharmacies that were members of the "Brinkley Pharmaceutical Association". These affiliated pharmacies sold Brinkley's over the counter medicines at highly inflated prices, sent a portion of their profit back to Brinkley and kept the rest. It is estimated that this generated $14,000 in profit weekly for Brinkley, or about $ per year in current value. Reports of patients who took Brinkley's suggested treatments showing up sick at another doctor's office began to grow, and eventually Merck & Co.
Merck & Co.
Merck & Co., Inc. , also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme or MSD outside the United States and Canada, is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. The Merck headquarters is located in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, an unincorporated area in Readington Township...
pharmaceuticals, whose medicines Brinkley routinely misprescribed, requested Fishbein take action; the AMA responded that they had no power over Brinkley, save to try to inform the public.
The Kansas City Star, which owned a radio station that competed with Brinkley's, ran an unfavorable series of reports on him. By 1930, when the Kansas Medical Board held a formal hearing to decide whether Brinkley's medical license should be revoked, Brinkley had signed death certificates for 42 people, many of whom were not sick when they showed up at his clinic. It is unclear how many more of Brinkley's patients may have become ill or later died elsewhere. The medical board revoked his license, stating that Brinkley "has performed an organized charlatanism ... quite beyond the invention of the humble mountebank".
Six months after losing his medical license, the Federal Radio Commission
Federal Radio Commission
The Federal Radio Commission was a government body that regulated radio use in the United States from its creation in 1926 until its replacement by the Federal Communications Commission in 1934...
refused to renew his station’s broadcasting license, finding that Brinkley's broadcasts were mostly advertising, which violated international treaties, that he broadcast obscene material, and that his Medical Question Box series was "contrary to the public interest". He sued the commission, but the courts upheld the revocation and the case Brinkley v. FRC became a landmark case in broadcast law.
Political career
Brinkley reacted to losing his medical and broadcast licenses by launching a bid to become the Governor of KansasGovernor of Kansas
The Governor of the State of Kansas is the head of state for the State of Kansas, United States. Under the Kansas Constitution, the Governor is also the head of government, serving as the chief executive of the Kansas executive branch, of the government of Kansas. The Governor is the...
, a political position that would enable him to appoint his own members to the medical board and thus regain his right to practice medicine in the state. He kicked off his candidacy just three days after he lost his medical license, using his radio station to help his campaign. At his side was KFKB's biggest country-music star, Roy Faulkner, who took to the stage with guitar and hat in hand. Brinkley campaigned on a vague program of public works (a state lake in every county), education (free textbooks for public schoolchildren and increased educational opportunities for blacks), lower taxes, and old-age pensions. He appealed to the immigrant vote by putting German- and Swedish-speaking people on the air at KFKB. He enlisted a pilot with his own plane (which Brinkley dubbed The Romancer) to deliver Brinkley in grand style at his campaign rallies. In short, Brinkley was a master of the publicity stunt; when a prominent newspaper reporter ran an article critical of his qualifications to run a state, Brinkley sent him a goat.
His campaign was conducted as an independent write-in candidate, because he waited to declare his candidacy until September, after the ballots had already been printed. Three days before the election, the Kansas attorney general (who had prosecuted Brinkley before the medical board) announced that the rules surrounding write-in candidates had changed, and that the doctor's name could only be written in one specific way for the vote to count (as J. R. Brinkley). As a write-in candidate, he received more than 180,000 votes (29.5 percent of the vote) and lost to Harry Hines Woodring
Harry Hines Woodring
Harry Hines Woodring was a U.S. political figure. He was born in 1890 in Elk City, Kansas. He was educated in city and county schools and at sixteen began work as a janitor in the First National Bank of Neodesha, Kansas...
, later Franklin Delano Roosevelt's secretary of war. An article published at the time in The Des Moines Register estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 ballots were disqualified in this manner. Woodring later admitted that had those votes counted, Brinkley would have won.
Brinkley ran again in 1932 as an Independent, receiving 244,607 votes (30.6 percent of the vote), losing to Republican Alf Landon
Alf Landon
Alfred Mossman "Alf" Landon was an American Republican politician, who served as the 26th Governor of Kansas from 1933–1937. He was best known for being the Republican Party's nominee for President of the United States, defeated in a landslide by Franklin D...
, later Republican nominee for president.
His prospects for success in Kansas destroyed, Brinkley sold KFKB to an insurance company and decided to move closer to the Mexican border, where he could operate a high-power radio station with impunity. Though he could no longer practice medicine in Kansas, he kept his Milford clinic open and put two of his protégés in charge. Wooed by the prospect of being a big fish in a very small pond, Brinkley relocated to sleepy Del Rio, Texas
Del Rio, Texas
Del Rio is a border city in and the county seat of Val Verde County, Texas, United States.. Del Rio is connected with Ciudad Acuña via the Lake Amistad Dam International Crossing and Del Río-Ciudad Acuña International Bridge...
, which lay just across a bridge from Mexico.
Brinkley and radio
The Mexican government, eager to get even with its northern neighbors for dividing up North America's radio wavelengths without giving any to Mexico, granted Brinkley a 50,000-watt radio license and construction began on XER-AM, his new "border blasterBorder blaster
A border blaster is a licensed commercial radio station that transmits at very high power from one nation to another. Border blasters should not be confused with international broadcast stations...
" across the bridge from Del Rio in Villa Acuña, Coahuila (since renamed Ciudad Acuña
Ciudad Acuña
Ciudad Acuña, also known simply as Acuña, is a city located in the Mexican state of Coahuila, at and a mean height above sea level of 271 meters...
). As construction got underway, Fishbein and the U.S. State Department desperately searched for a way to shut Brinkley down. Under heavy pressure from the State Department, the Mexican government halted construction on XER-AM, but it was only temporary. Within weeks, construction resumed and soon two 300 feet (91.4 m) towers reached into the sky. XER, at 840 kilohertz on the AM
Amplitude modulation
Amplitude modulation is a technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting information via a radio carrier wave. AM works by varying the strength of the transmitted signal in relation to the information being sent...
dial, radiated by a sky wave antenna, made its first broadcast in October 1931. Brinkley called it the "Sunshine Station Between the Nations".
Brinkley used his new border blaster to resume his campaign for governor by using the telephone to call in his broadcasts to the transmitter. This approach did not work, and he lost yet another political campaign; he would lose again in 1934. Though Brinkley's American radio license had been revoked, XER's signal was so strong that it could still be heard in Kansas. In 1932, the Mexican government allowed Brinkley to up his wattage to 150,000 watts. Several months later, Brinkley was allowed to increase to one million watts, "making XER far and away the most powerful radio station on the planet" that, on a clear night, could be heard as far away as Canada. According to accounts of the time, the signal was so strong that it turned on car headlights, made bedsprings hum, and caused broadcasts to bleed into telephone conversations. Local residents didn't even need a radio to hear Brinkley's station; ranchers reported that they received it through their metal fences and in their dental appliances.
Brinkley continued his old radio format of medical advice keyed to advertising products. Male listeners were offered an array of expensive concoctions which included Mercurochrome
Merbromin
Merbromin is a topical antiseptic used for minor cuts and scrapes. Merbromin is an organomercuric disodium salt compound and a fluorescein...
injections and pills, all designed to help them regain their sexual prowess. At the clinic in the hotel where he lived he also performed prostate operations. He also began selling airtime to other advertisers (at $1,700 an hour, $ in current value), giving rise to new hucksters shilling products such as "Crazy Water Crystals", "genuine simulated" diamonds, life insurance, and an array of religious paraphernalia, including what was purported to be autographed pictures of Jesus Christ. Brinkley also continued packing his radio lineup with up-and-coming country and roots singers whose careers his radio station helped launch (including Patsy Montana
Patsy Montana
Ruby Rose Blevins , known professionally as Patsy Montana, was an American country music singer-songwriter and the first female country performer to have a million-selling single...
, Red Foley
Red Foley
Clyde Julian Foley , better known as Red Foley, was an American singer, musician, and radio and TV personality who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II....
, Gene Autry
Gene Autry
Orvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
, Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)
James Charles Rodgers , known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling...
, The Carter Family, and others). Del Rio became known as "Hillbilly Hollywood".
When the FRC banned what they called "spooks" (mind readers, fortune-tellers and other mystics) from broadcasting on U.S. radio in 1932, many of them followed Brinkley's model, opening their own border blasters in Mexico. By 1932, 11 such stations had opened, including XENT, XERB, XELO, XEG and XEPN.
Brinkley was still shuttling back and forth from Milford to Del Rio, often broadcasting from XER over the telephone. But in 1932, Congress passed a law outlawing this practice, known as the Brinkley Act
Brinkley Act
The Brinkley Act is the popular name given to . This provision was enacted by the United States Congress to prohibit broadcasting studios in the U.S. from being connected by live telephone line or other means to a transmitter located in Mexico.Prior to World War II, Dr. John R...
. Unfazed, Brinkley began using some of the first "electrical transcriptions" — what today would be called pre-recordings — to circumvent the law. Around this time, Brinkley decided to sever the rest of his ties to Kansas, closing down his hospital there and opening a new one in Del Rio, which took up three floors of the Roswell Hotel, where he lived with his wife.
In 1934, Mexico revoked Brinkley's broadcast license, the result of pressure from the United States. Soldiers from the Mexican army arrived at the station's doorstep to shut him down, and for a time he had to broadcast from nearby XEPN, located in Piedras Negras, Coahuila
Piedras Negras, Coahuila
-Natural Resources:This region generates a large amount of the national production of coal, one of the most economically important non-metallic minerals in the state.-Tourism:Piedras Negras' main tourist attractions are:...
.
Though Brinkley continued to perform the occasional goat gland transplant, in Texas his practice shifted mostly to performing slightly modified vasectomies
Vasectomy
Vasectomy is a surgical procedure for male sterilization and/or permanent birth control. During the procedure, the vasa deferentia of a man are severed, and then tied/sealed in a manner such to prevent sperm from entering into the seminal stream...
and prostate "rejuvenations" (for which he charged up to $1,000 per operation ($ in current value), and prescribed his own proprietary medicine for after-care). His business, fueled by radio advertisements and speeches, continued to thrive, and he opened another clinic in San Juan, Texas
San Juan, Texas
San Juan is a city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. The population in July 2008 was 33,970 since then the population of San Juan increased since 2000 by +29.5%. The name reflects that of a founding father...
specializing in the colon. By 1936, Brinkley had amassed enough wealth to build a mansion for himself and his wife on 16 acres (6.5 ha) of land. Brinkley boasted a stable of a dozen Cadillacs, a greenhouse, a foaming fountain garden surrounded by 8,000 bushes, exotic animals imported from the Galapagos Islands
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...
, and a swimming pool with a 10 feet (3 m) diving tower. Brinkley continued living high in Del Rio, until in 1938 a rival doctor began cutting into Brinkley's business by offering similar procedures much more cheaply. When Del Rio's city elders refused to put the competitor out of business, Brinkley closed up shop and reopened in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
with another hospital at what is now Marylake Monastery
Marylake Carmelite Monastery
The Marylake Carmelite Monastery is a monastery for men seeking to become members of the Discalced Carmelites, a Catholic mendicant order.-History:...
. His competition from Del Rio opened a new cancer center in Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Eureka Springs, Arkansas
Eureka Springs is a city in Carroll County, Arkansas, United States. Along with Berryville, it is one of the two county seats for the county. It is located in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town is 2,350...
, about 150 miles (241.4 km) northwest of Little Rock.
Trial and death
In 1938, Brinkley's old nemesis, Morris Fishbein, entered the picture again with a vengeance, publishing a two-part series called "Modern Medical Charlatans" that included a thorough repudiation of Brinkley's checkered career, as well as exposing his questionable medical credentials. Brinkley sued Fishbein for libel and $250,000 in damages ($ in current value). The trial began on March 22, 1939, before Texas judge R. J. MacMillan. A few days later, the jury found for Fishbein, stating that Brinkley "should be considered a charlatan and a quack in the ordinary, well-understood meaning of those words". The jury verdict unleashed a barrage of lawsuits against Brinkley, by some estimates well over $3 million in total value. Also around this time, the Internal Revenue ServiceInternal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
began investigating him for tax fraud. He declared bankruptcy in 1941, the same year the U.S. and Mexico reached an agreement on allocating radio bandwidth and shut down XERA.
Soon after his bankruptcy the United States Post Office Department
United States Post Office Department
The Post Office Department was the name of the United States Postal Service when it was a Cabinet department. It was headed by the Postmaster General....
began investigating him for mail fraud, and Brinkley became a patient himself, having suffered three heart attacks and the amputation of one of his legs due to poor circulation. On May 26, 1942, Brinkley died penniless of heart failure in San Antonio; the mail fraud case had not yet come to trial. He was later buried in Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
.
His house, commonly called the Brinkley Mansion, still stands today at 512 Qualia Drive in Del Rio and has been designated Texas Historic Landmark number 13015.
See also
- Medical quackery
- XER – at Villa Acuña, Coahuila, opposite Del Rio, Texas.
- XERA – replaced radio station XER.
- XEAW – at Reynosa, Tamaulipas, opposite McAllen, Texas.
- XERF – new station that was granted a license by Mexico for Ciudad Acuña at a different location,
- "Goat gland" filmGoat gland (film release)Goat gland was a term applied c. 1927–1929, during the period of transition from silent films to sound films. It referred to an already completed silent film to which one or more talkie sequences were added in an effort to make the otherwise redundant film more suitable for release in the...
, slang for a largely silent film with sound sequences added to augment marketability