He's Nuts!: "Dr." John R. Brinkley

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio Zarah.

Hey, what up, my girl? How are you doing?

I'm great? How are you?

I'm doing pretty well and taking nourishment.

I like that. I want you to listen to me.

Yeah, I'm listening. I'm totally pitching. Look, I'm listening. What you know?

Yeah, is ridiculous?

Oh my god? Do I did you know that? There is a prejudice against people named Kevin In Germany? There was a whole prejudice called Kevinism. It's prejudice against people named Kevin. And the crazy thing is it's about US Americans, essentially, because there was a whole cultural excitement over the name Kevin thanks to two movies Home Alone in nineteen ninety, which the Germans called Kevin alinees out House, which means Kevin all alone in the home, instead of just calling

The subreddit tragedies or the names where you put ei g H at the end of whatever name, like oh oh yeah, okay, and it's just spelled all nuts.

Yeah. Well, in twenty fifteen, there was an online poll and it was alpha Kevin, which was a combination of alpha and Kevin was the German word of the year, right because they're using it so much, because it's like Karen, yeah exactly, it becomes this this like like you know, marker and also a smear, a slur if you will, all right, and uh yeah, there's also a female component. There is chantelle chantelle. Yeah. I don't know why, but chantelle.

That's ridiculous. Goat glands.

What this is?

Ridiculous Crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent ridiculous. Oh you damn right, buddy, I got a guy for you. Really, he's like this amalgam of many of our previous characters that we've.

Shared here, sure in our stories, in our.

Stories, and as I tell my story, let me give you a little taste please. So we've got a diploma.

Mill, is this taste free? This is first taste.

Usually free and then you got to pay.

Okay, we got a diploma.

Mills got a diploma. Mill. There's pirate radio. There's a failed political run, he got a little mail fraud. How about a book in a movie? My interests, and most importantly, we have goat testicles.

Whoa wait, you said that last one in there.

It's like a little bit of a bunch of other stories all rolled into one dude named John Romulus Brinkley. Kidding this just like I feel like I'm making it up.

It's like, is this real? Is this going to run on April first? Are you just like playing with me?

Well? No, we found out about this because this guy, John Rice, John Rice, John Rice gave us a tip about this.

Oh thank you?

Whoa? She always say good looking out He helped us out here. So John Romulus Brinkley was born in eighteen eighty five.

A Christy's grandfather.

Yes, her dad. Oh sorry, he was born in eighteen eighty five. So his dad was John Richard Brinkley and his mom was Sarah Candice Burnett. She a relative of yours.

Yeah, totally, so, Mam sage.

John Richard the dad was a true hillbilly, nice like he's a man of the hills in North Carolina. And I love it. I love that for him. He's in beda. I don't like shirts either, beda, North Carolina.

Okay, do you know where that is?

It's kind of I looked it up on the map. Of course I didn't do street view.

It may not be possible.

Well, I think that's kind of where Hurricane Helene like wrecked shop. It's like it's like a little west. It's further out. Yeah, it's just a crossroads. But it's like further out from Asheville. So I think it was just on the perimeter. But it's deep in the hills.

What you're saying.

So the dad, he's this like itinerant preacher. He also served as a medic for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He did some doctor and up in them our hills, and so his first country dodger. His first marriage was annulled because he was underage.

You don't normally hear that.

Hear that he was the child's room. So he went on.

Was he had trunk trunk like husband he sent on the train down a couple of towns or like, No, he opened the box and see what your husband looks like.

Took a like into an older lady.

Oh hello.

So he went on to get married four more times, and he was a widower each time. Okay, so it's just keeps outliving these ladies.

He's always picking older ladies.

I don't know. I suppose in eighteen seventy he's forty two years old and he married Sarah Mingus and sadly Sarah.

Died no relation to Charlie, no.

None, and then well and then her twenty four year old niece, Sarah Candas Burnett. Ah, my people's she moves into the house.

This is how we're related to the Minguses Charlie. He's back in the family.

Now, go on, So Sarah Candas Burnett moves in. I'm gonna help you because you know, like my my auntie died and I'm gonna help take care of.

Oh yeah, and people needed that then yeah.

So she goes by Sally so that she's not confused with her late aunt Sarah.

Sarah don't have too many sarahs.

Sally and John Senior. They hook up naturally before they So he's forty two, she's twenty four. Just the old flip the numbers. Okay, he's working young now, yeah, exactly.

He's the December now.

So before they get married, she gives birth to a boy.

Okay, John before they get married.

Before they get married. John Romulus Brinkley, Oh he was.

He was a legitimate He's.

Named after his father. But the Romulus was from the twin from myths, you know, Romulus and Remis.

Yeah, founders of Rome.

The ones who are suckled by wolves.

You know, that's gotta be good, strong milk.

So by the time the game they get married, like, they get married. But by the time little John is ten, both of his parents have died.

I'm telling you, I got a sense when he was born illegitimate. At that time, I'm like, there's gonna be some problems in this childhood.

So he lived up in the Tukasigi area in North Carolina with his aunt dirt poor. Yes, they have absolutely nothing. And then his early twenties he meets Sally Margaret Wike and she came from a pretty rich family, like by the standards of the area. So they get married in nineteen oh seven in Silva, North Carolina, was right next to Beta John. He always wanted to be a doctor, just like his daddy. So he what does he do? He joins up with a traveling medicine show selling like tonics patent medicine.

They they got the wagon, they opened the side, Yeah, exactly.

So he gets married, he and his bride moved to Chicago. They have a daughter. He enrolls at Bennett Medical College.

Oh, he actually goes. He doesn't just start calling himself doctor Brinkle.

Well, well he did, and then he decides, I'm going to go to I'm going to go to medical school to legit. Bennett Medical College is what we in the biz called diploma mill. I told you about that, you did, I didn't see it even though it's unaccredited. It's focused on eclectic medicine.

What is that I'm going.

To tell you. So the eclectic medical movement came up in the US and like the you know, early nineteenth century, early you know, eighteen hundreds, and it was the medical treatment at the time was like pretty aggressive and so this was like an alternative.

To it, like we don't use leeches.

Yeah, we're not going to make on this, you know peace. So I mean, yeah, the blood letting, mercury based medicines. So eclectic. They they were like gentler. They were all about botanical cures and natural therapy. Yeah, and they would draw from like Native American herbal knowledge or like I would say, quote unquote native American, it's.

Like pretending American.

So eclectic medicine. It reaches his peak in the mid eighteenth hundreds, and there are like a lot of schools that were starting to train these practitioners, and by like the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, like when John was up in there, the movement's on the decline. So he gets in on the tail end of it. And like real medical schools, they're like emphasizing scientific rigor.

Sure they've realized germ theory by now exactly.

And then the American Medical Association the AMA, they're really pushing for higher educational stand wash your hands, and then like this whole notion of licensing. Yeah, so yeah, proove up that.

You know, here's this book called gras Anatomys, buy it, read it.

And you think about it. Eclectic medicine is pretty much going on today.

Oh yeah, that's what we have. We have a new Medical.

Preserve comment on that, all right, you know, but come on, So anyway, at school, John learned about glandular extracts. Oh yeah, he decided that was going to be a specialty.

Oh yeah, I've talked about it, all about it that was a big thing. Then there was a serum of potency exactly.

So he hears about it. He's like, this sounds awesome. That's I'm going to be like at home. He and his wife rocky relationship. They kept splitting up and then getting back together. At one point he kidnapped his own kid by grabbing her and taking off in a taxi with no license plate, and he took her up to the cab stolen. I don't know, but that was what it was in the paper, and he took her up to Canada. But then the couple got back together.

So like a bad mother and he's like saving the child.

They're both just dramatic.

They're both bad parents and child exactly.

That's how I got it. So they get back together. John continues his studies until one day he came home from school. His pregnant wife has scidadled back to Tuckasege, North Carolina with the kid. This is nineteen eleven at this point, so he goes after him. They reunite. He couldn't afford to go to school anymore, dropped out, and he tried to get it good enough. Well, he tries to get work as a quote undergraduate physician. I don't know.

Mostly, come on, do you want the two that or not?

He's calling himself an undergraduate physician, dragging his family all over the South, trying to make a go of it. No dice. By this time nineteen twelve, he has three kids and a wife who's like totally over it, not into this. So then they split for good. John goes to Greenville, South Carolina.

Oh I know that place, yeah, and.

Sally heads back to the Haller in North Carolina. He's up in the upstate Greenville.

Yeah, she's in the hills.

So John set up quote Greenville electro medic Doctors. What now, Greenville electro medic Doctors. So he's got like gadgets and stuff yues with this guy as this business partner, James Crawford aka J. W.

Burkes.

So, okay, they catered to men looking to up their manliness in the manisphere.

These like where they strap you on a machine that shakes your belly, you know, like.

Just jiggles it at you. So they would they ran ads and they said that they used solver sand. Okay, which was supposed to be a German eclectic medicines Salvarsan. It was just colored water and they would just like inject it into desperate dudes, and.

So saltwater we're gonna give you. The saline shot.

Cost twenty five dollars back then. I just imagine it was like egg dying water.

Oh wow, yeah for.

Eastern twenty five bucks. Elizabeth. That doesn't sound like a lot of money, not now, Elizabeth, but it sure was then.

Uh.

It's like it's like charging more than eight hundred dollars a shot?

Are you kidding me?

Well, but it totally seems like something that like TikTok kids would do. Now yeah, you're like, oh, well we've got salver sand and raw milk.

Yeah, exactly. Seems like a lot of people that just the TikTok kid like.

This eights a shot because that.

Makes it sound like it's worthwhile, and it's right in that price point of like, oh, that's like, you know, less than my rent, but like more than most things I buy.

Than my car payment. So they couldn't pay their bills. Uh, John and then his his buddy James, right, James Crawford, even though they're charging these outrageous amounts for shots of like tinted water. They got all these bills, so they skipped down and they got to Memphis, Tennessee. Good place for it, eventual home of Graceland, Yes, thank you for it. Was there that John met Minnie Jones.

That's a great name, doctor's daughter, oh man, Jones, perfect, she knows the life. They went a courting for four good on them, poor whole days.

And on the fifth day they got married.

Oh man, yeah, great week.

But wait a second, Yes, Elizabeth, wasn't John still married to Sally.

That's a great question, Elizabeth. I don't know the answer.

The answer is yes, yes he was.

Oh I thought that was the case.

So yeah, so they John and Minnie they traveled around together. But like they get to Knoxville, Tennessee, things take a turn. To see, old John got arrested and well, no, it seems that skipping town and Greenville wasn't the.

Most all right, he's got bills.

Yeah, so he and his business partner, James Crawford, they owed the merchants of Greenville a grip a cat and they've been like buying up a storm on credit.

I'm sure.

And then he Also they're like ps practicing medicine without a license, PPS writing bad checks. So then John's like, well, you know what, I'll tell you who really did this? Crawford? So they arrest him. Yeah, the two the two settled their debts out of court for a few thousand bucks. So he gets out of jail.

He's doing well. They got throw away.

Yeah, he gets out of jail, he's cleared by the law. John meets up with Minnie in Memphis. Memphis.

Mini does Memphis many do you think aware of this? Like in the headlines, there's that kind of a choir.

I think Minnie's fully aware of everything. But you know who else went to Memphis?

Who else went?

Sally the first wife undeterred, So she confronts them and they're like, whatever is going on? They leave town. They're like, we're going to Arkansas altogether. Yeah, Sally stays he John and Minnie are like, you're like, I thought to do this grand thing. He's already married. Minnie's like, I don't care, man, And so then John he somehow got an undergraduate license to practice medicine.

You know enough lawyer style, And I'm.

Guessing those exist because there aren't enough educated folks at that time.

Totally.

Like when I first moved to the rural south, the town where I lived had a magistrate, a judge, and that magistrate only out a high school diploma.

No, yeah, yeah, And.

So then they eventually made a law that you at least had to have a bachelor's degree, but it didn't have to be in law, just like what degree?

Yeah, show us even finished something exactly.

So then let's see where are we. October nineteen fourteen, John and his family they moved to Kansas City.

Oh yeah, and there.

He finds Eclectic Medical University of Kansas City.

He founds it. No, he like discovers, Oh, discovers finds it. Oh, there it is.

There's the phone book. He enrolls. It's another diploma mill. And this is the kind where you just like straight up by a diploma.

So you don't even have to do any pretense.

No, he just bought it, that's what he's done. So it was like a small and shall we say, controversial institution because it's part of that eclectic movement.

So fit in a mailbox, yeah exactly.

So it's like if you can't get into real med school, you go to EMUKC.

Sure.

So they're curriculum again botanical medicine. They get trained to be skeptical of surgery and pharmaceuticals and it's just all about herbal treatments, you know, which is fine. I have some medical conditions that could in no way be treated with herbs. Yeah, and spices, yes, many people to a blend of verbs and space.

And you know, I believe food is the first medicine. So I am not sitting here.

Like the drugs I take suck, but they keep me from dying.

Yeah, exactly. There are a lot of things like that.

I got that going for me. So it's safe to say that the training at Eclectic Medical University was inadequate.

And probably costing lives.

Yes, and it's graduates, you know, they don't really have scientific knowledge. Everything's like anecdotal, vibe based, traditional.

And they're not even like up to like the homeopathic standard of like the German doctors of the time, who are like I'm going out and picking stuff.

And then giving that they're even like like analytics hundreds of.

Years of stuff. I'm basing this on right now. Chinese medicine. Same thing we had, you know, centuries.

There was in nineteen ten, the Carnegie Foundation commissioned this selection report, and this came out before John was in phony med school, and it kind of exposed and called for stricter standards.

Doesn't it lead to the AMA?

It does. So while eclectic medicine, you know, there's some knowledge and herbal remediants and stuff, but like it's just it can't keep up with modern medicine. So John he wants to finish up his doctrine. His focus was quote the irritations and enlargements of the prostate gland in elderly men. So he buys his diploma.

He's like, that happens a lot. That should be a good market. What's his move there exactly?

I don't know. It's it's just a curiosity for him, a growth markets, A diploma that gives him the right to practice medicine in eight states.

What are those eight states? Are they all formerly Confederate states? Elizabeth?

I don't know. So he gets this job as a doctor slash medic at animal rendering plant and he's like tending to injured workers, but he's also studying the animals.

How depressed I know.

So everyone tells him that like the healthiest animal. Of all the kinds that are killing in there and slaughtering up is the goat.

Oh there's no horse. You're gonna horse. That makes sense. I can see that.

So, like you know, John and Sally Good officially animals. John marries Minni again, this time.

Legally marries her again.

Yeah, he gets drafted into World War One.

But like freaking wondering how old he was for that.

He gets he just falls apart during training. Two weeks they send him home. So Minnie and John they moved to Milford, Kansas.

Why Milford and Milford, Kansas.

John saw an ad in the paper they needed a doctor there. He figures, why not me?

He's like, I'm gonna go moonlight Grandma over there.

Let's take a Breakay, we don't have ads advertising for doctors that I know of, but we do have an abundance of wonderful products and services that no one could ever resist. So enjoy this capitalist symphony, and when we return, we'll pick up with doctor John Good ads right.

Oh my god, so good. I put my wallet away. I was just by getting on my phone and started throwing numbers at the computer all this stuff.

Thank you companies for funding this operation. We appreciate you. The product in me recognizes the product in you. I must say. Okay, So John Brinkley, Milford, Kansas. This is a tiny town. I'm no high school, no traffic lights, no paved roads, no water or sewer systems, not a town, no electricity.

Just some houses too close to each other.

So it's just two hundred people at a crossroads. Wow. There was a bank, I'm sure, and like some mills and a general store, and there was a post office at a telegraph machine. Okay, So he got himself diploma, got himself some snake oil, got himself a new bride, and got himself a mission. I Am here to treat and eradicate male impotence. Like that's that's his whole thing.

Town, Like what seven men who qualify You know what, though.

Big Pharma will tell you it's one of the most urgent and important public health issues of all time.

As men grow, as men grow older, and we all grow and we all like live longer, you have more time to catch it. That's for to develop it. Rather I should catch it. You know.

It is the most important public health issue. It's up there, hands down.

For you.

Older guys don't study anything else, just put everything. So he studied and he analyzed, and he like vibed out, and he came up with a breakthrough. He could cure male impotence and other sexual health issues impotent.

So we're just talking about he came up with viagara back then. It's not like I'm going to believe your suffering. I'm going to help you with the pain. I'm gonna make us your back and you can sit down. None of that. I'm going to give you back. You're male vigor.

Yeah, I'm going to rub it with a savage.

Of course, you got to get a sa there, Elizabeth.

So he says, I know it. I'm going to transplant goat test to goals into human men. Man. Yeah, so you told the story once. Oh yeah, very Similargo nineteen twenty two for.

The doctors who were doing this, and you had to get the testicle somewhere.

He dates that. And remember you had like all the research of all like the forerunners of them.

He studied those guys, the same guys. Yeah.

Yeah, but and your guys were stealing men's much.

Human testicle trans man. Just load that sack.

Up man on many intra species.

So you got two how about four.

We're gonna we're gonna get even more disgusting here. Oh no, goat to man, No, goat to man.

They load them up. They're not making like a serum that's shooting in the armors.

No, don't they use pig insulin for diabetic.

Yeah that's your point.

Yeah, I think so, Yeah, I think so.

And then skin for burn victims, baboon hearts, bab boon heartsrplants.

Kitty to human ear transplants.

I asked for draft eyes to my doctor and he looked at me weird. I'm like, this is why I need.

Them perfect Hello anyway, Okay, so you talked about these men being robbed of their little nutsocks by mad prison doctors and the whatnots not John Brinkley his first operation was in nineteen seventeen in Milford, Kansas. His neighbors where everyone knows everyone. So he had a patient who was always begging him to help boost his virility, like drink your ovaltine, bro, bro, and so. John, he was only in Milford for two weeks.

Before this guy's like, hey, can you help me.

With the farmer came to see him. He tells John quote all in no pep a flat tire. Wow, yeah, flat tire. That's a good one.

So tired of the cod liver oil.

It's just not working. So he and his wife they wanted another kid. They had a kid, they want another one. But it's just not happening.

Okay, the equipment wasn't helping.

We had the farmer. He'd gone to all these other cities looking for help, but no doctor was able to get his motor run in.

So uh.

John had been taught at Bennett Medical College. You could quote treat the issue with serums, medicine, electricity, got a shock and like it wouldn't work, but you could keep trying with the patients because they're desperate. That's what they taught him in medical. This isn't going to work, but just like it's not, just keep try. Is a payday and.

We all learned from your failures.

Exactly. Shock that John John and the farmer. They're making small talk and discussing farm animals.

Okay, I'm hoping you mean in a professional way.

Yeah, and like you know, you go to the doctor about something like this, John John jokes to the farmer, quote, you wouldn't have any trouble if you had a pair of those butt glands in you.

But it's like he's making up.

Now you gotta flip it around the butt in there.

An elbow buck buck. Okay, but you see talking about goats. Got yeah, the male goat.

And the farmer says, well, why don't you put him in?

Got got some time there?

So like John tells him, like, you can't transplant from an animal to a human.

They are all sorts of And the.

Farmers like, I don't see why not?

You know, I know animal husbandry.

And then John's like, you know what, the surgery could be fatal, and the farmer says, I don't care.

The one who wants to be a father, the one who has a small child.

The man is willing to give his life to get a stiffy for science.

He's wanting to give his life for science. Stiffy.

John later told his biographer that he quote felt his flesh crawl, felt dirtied by the thought.

Well, I bet and did he take the money and to get clean?

So dirty that he went ahead with it?

I knew it.

John tells him I don't have a goat. And the farmer is ready for this. He's like, I raise him I'll furnish the goat, you do the operation.

I'll bring in the sack. You do it. Huh. He's like, I got goats, oh yeah.

And I know how to castraight one. So let's get and we're good. So a couple of nights later, the farmer came by with.

His goat and like a bucket. Oh wait, with the goat.

With the goat, he just brings the whole goat to the office. Zarino. No, I will not do that. I will not do that. No, I'm kidding, We're not going to do that.

Oh thank god.

John performed the surgery. If you want to imagine it, it's like in a cartoon where there's like a one of those old timey screens like in a hospital room, and like there's clanking and then like a soft flies up like whatever, Like just imagine that.

Okay, So like Popeye's doing.

This exactly exactly. So John does the surgery. They didn't want anyone to know what they did.

I bet they did not.

It's kind of it's kind of a rule that I have for myself, Like if I think that I don't want anyone to find out about something, I don't do it. If you're thinking like I wish I know, I don't want anyone to know about that. Then don't do it.

I just try to do it better. It's like I don't want to even to find out about it, so I can't make a mistake. I like you is way better, totally write that down.

The two guys work out a plant. So the farmer goes home like walking all the wide.

Steps, what about the goat?

And then in the morning he tells his wife that he's sick with the flu. So she calls the doctor and he says he'll come out and check on the farmer. So this way, like they know, the telephone operator listens into all the oh thought about it, so that the telephone operator the wife none the wiser. La. Oh yeah, so I guess the guy didn't die, because.

I guess the guy died.

Two weeks later. He paid John one hundred and fifty dollars for the procedure.

And that's like second fifellars.

Super stoked about the results.

Oh yeah, it works.

Oh yeah. So it's a tiny town. People talk, including the farmer where he's like, oh, we will never speak of this, and then he goes.

He's like going to the neighbor. Hey, you want to feel something? Where yees.

Four?

So count them soon.

This other guy, William Stitsworth, and I give his name for the benefit of his descendants. William Stitsworth. He came in complaining of terminal flacidity.

Oh he could never come yeah, And.

So John makes him swear to keep this to himself. He's like, all right, look, I got it. I got a procedure, but you cannot tell anyone. He's like, I won't tell anyone.

I would never.

And so John does the operation on him.

Wait does he have to bring his own goat in or did they go back to the first farmer.

I think you got more than was the goat.

He's now the supplier. He's like, I got a plug. You're good exactly.

So like he does the operation. William's happy with it, and he brings his wife in.

With the goats.

Their logic was that if if the testicles worked on a man, then maybe goat ovaries would help a woman.

Oh well, at least they were keeping it, you know, specific to the parts.

So sure. So John and I think that, like in your testicle thief case, he was just adding the balls into the sack and not connecting them to anything for.

The most part, Yeah, just doing an absorption.

And I'm guessing that's the case with the woman. I have no idea how this would work.

I don't know how you would connect or how.

Would No, they're not connecting anything. Would the inserted materials not start to putrefy?

I would, and your body would absorb what it could.

And then there's part of me that wonders if he even did any transplant at all.

Will they be able to feel something just putting like a glass bead in there?

Yeah, you feel with the ovaries thing like, yeah, nothing, I wouldn't touch that. But I think he actually really did it. Anyway, here's something crazy.

Neither there's something crazy, I think, is what you mean. Here's something crazy.

Neither of the Stitsworth died. In fact, they went on to have a healthy baby. What yes child out of her? So John, he starts performing these operations on the regular, like everyone starts talking about the guys come from all over California. Two dudes came from California. But he ran into this problem because the initial goats that he were

Still, you're right, that is crazy.

He's mentioning this to one of his patients. He's like, you know, it's gonna stink to and they're like, and they he the patient takes a look at the neutered goat used in the last operation. There's just like a huge pens handing there, and the guy says to him, that's an angora. Billy doc, I thought any dang fool would know what angora stinks to.

High Heaven because all the oils.

Yeah, like using different he's like, oh, I got to use different starts advertising his services. Yeah, it's no secret he used the Stittsworths in the ads. He paid them for it. He put them on his like payroll because they were proof that this families have kids intended. Here's a clip from a book called The Bizarre Careers of John L. Brinkley by R. Alton Lee R.

Elton Lee, R.

Alton Lee quote. An even more remarkable case soon appeared. The Stitsworths told John about their cousin in an insane asylum in Nebraska. He had been institutionalized and his condition was caused, Brinkley claimed, by onanism or self abuse. Brinkley operated and the man recovered and later became an executive in a Kansas City bank.

So wait, this man was handling himself too much And the answer was goat and jesticles. Yes, okay.

He went on to become an executive at a Kansas City bank. Brinkley added insanity to the growing list of ills that the goat gland operation could cure, provided the cause had sexual roots. So this guy touches himself too much. And it's not like on Sons of Anarchy where the fingers off. This is like he goes on to be a bank executive.

I don't even know where to begin.

So what he has all these ads? One man who read an ad was the chancellor of the University of Chicago Law School.

What yeah, he goes out to the University of Chicago.

Yes, he goes out to Milford to get some goat balls and planted. Wow. And he's so thrilled with the results that he invited John to graduation and gave him an honorary Doctor of Science degree.

Are you.

Making all this up as I go? No? He expands the practice. So he built a special hospital in Milford, the Brinkley Jones Hospital and training.

School for nurses, the Goat Institution.

It's like three stories.

Are you kidding me?

It cost twenty thousand dollars to build it. That's like a bit over four hundred thousand. Now, sure there are beds for sixteen patients, and then there were pens in the back for the goats. I got to keep Minnie. She goes to the nursing school, but since she was also vice president of the school, she signed her own diploma. Oh my god. And this is all all of this is less than a year after John got to town.

What the year one?

All of his development is really benefiting the town, Like he brings in water, sewer, electricity, paper, Milford on the map, but many were not model citizens. Like he would get into his cups and get a little wild. He started fights, and he was just generally an ass. Yeah, he chased people with butcher knives.

Why are you dry? You were real casual.

You apparently bit off a piece of a guy's ear in a fight. Milford in nineteen twenty, Many got arrested for selling alcohol to a dentist. The guy was like three sheets to the wind when cops found him, so they were like, okay, that alcohol was not provided for medicinal purposes, because you're just like the prohibition. John stepped in and took the fall for Minnie and he got

He's also the doctor who's putting goat junking people and everyone's like, oh, yeah, that's the respectable guy.

But you know what, he got electricity, the.

One who had to get a board to the head last weekend.

Yeah, so at the hospital, they're conducting regular procedures too. It's not just all goat business. Oh that's appendectomies, and side really is all about the goats at the end. Yeah, so he's you know, people are paying all this money. The AMA strongly condemns the goat gland transplant as quackery, and they warn the public like this has no scientific merit. This could be terribly dangerous. And it wasn't all successes of like farmers pop boners on tractors and his baby's coming up.

This is mostly a placebo effect people, that's we're talking.

And there were a lot of men who had like really severe complications, infections and abscesses, and some died.

Oh I was wondering if they would lose their parts. They lost their lives.

Yeah, the surgery was not sanitary, and it was so poorly thought through. It didn't matter because.

Pretty sowe back up.

Yeah. Part of John's thing is he starts his own radio station kb Kansas First, Kansas Best, and he's promoting his services and giving all this crazy bad medical advice. And on the radio he expands beyond medicine, like he would air programs about religion, country music, political speech.

Daniels type yes.

And it became one of the most powerful stations in the Midwest, and like broadcast, those broadcasts were really revolutionary, and he becomes like one of the early pioneers of radio advertising.

Are you kidding?

Well, he'd advertise Brinkley's pills and then his goat gland stuff and like other weird.

Treatments medicine jump right back out.

Yeah, and like he's it's like current day stuff. He's preying on the hopes and fears.

Of course, yeah, people who are desperate to have the alleviated.

And he's like this populist hero in rural American. But when you're out in the open like that, you get scrutinized, or at least we hope you do.

Yeah.

So the Federal Radio Commission, they revoked his radio license for broadcasting misleading and fraudulent medical advice. Kansas State Medical Board revoked his medical license.

He had one, yeah, well the one that he.

Got with because for him. Yeah, so they're like, no, you can't do that here. Then there are all these lawsuits from former patients and families of those who died as a result of the procedure, which like adds to all these let's take a break. I'm going to go feed the goats out back, and then when upon my return, I'll tell you more about John's goat testical empire and how it crumbles.

Zarin, I thought the goats were for yogurt, Elizabeth, you have yogurt soap?

Uh huh, Yeah, it's so creamy.

So tell me more about the goats. Sat medicine guy.

We got doctor John Brinkley. He's lost his medical license, lost his broadcasting license, but he hadn't lost his appetite for fame and spectacle. No. So, in nineteen thirty he did what any delusional businessman slash dangerous snake oil salesman slash narcissistic abbliviator would do. He ran for office. Oh yeah, he wanted to be governor of Kansas.

Wow cast so do I? Yeah?

So he missed.

He's like, you know, who can really hide their crimes? The governor?

He missed his deadline, defile No, so he ran as an independent write in candidate. Yeah, and it wasn't the most exciting election before he threw his hat in the ring. But after Buddy so everyone had heard about his loss of the various licenses, and he had that giant radio station still going because the license revocation was in appeal. People were hurting, the economy is not good. They sympathized with a guy who'd been stripped of his livelihood, and

They were buying their textbooks, I.

Guess, free health club programs for children, pensions for the elderly, the blind, and like anyone who couldn't work. He railed against agribusiness and like lauded the family farm. He called for a recreational lake to be built in every county in the state. Like he had the Yetti cooler owners.

On that seriously, and he had a Minnesota on watch.

But actually he said that when the water in the lakes evaporated. It would bring about more rainfall and moisture for Kansas crops.

So wait, they were going to make lakes and then the lakes were going to go away and start rain, and then that would just rain on Kansas.

He is a man of science. Wow, yeah, that's eclectic.

In every county, we're going to put an evaporative lake.

Yeah okay, and like and then it's going to rain all the time, just rain on Kansas. Amazing.

And we'll put that water back from somewhere else, who knows, we'll get it, we'll steal it.

He wanted to raise the gas tax in order to pave like thousands of miles row.

Oh yeah, he's got plans, big plans.

He wanted Kansas to buy Kansas products, okay. And his slogan for the campaign clean up, clean out, keep Kansas clean, so just clean, clean, clean, unlike in his surgery rooms. Yes, so this was actually that's that phrase though, was stolen from a mayor's race, like several years prior that he heard about. And he's like a.

Local one, like not even from like Missouri.

I don't know, I don't know. It was just like someone else.

I'll take that.

Well, that sounds good to me. So we had that radio station and he used it. He'd get on there and just like yammer for hours. I mean, he had these huge rallies too.

Sounds yeah.

And a lot of people showed up just out of morbid curiosity to see this. They wanted to see the famous goat gland doctor. But then some of the people who showed up, they actually like liked what they heard. And he was this super rich guy. He'd raked it in when he was doing the goat snips. And but he's appealing to the working man. He'd say, quote, all of us physicians and nurses down here at Milford are

Oh, political enemies.

Yeah. So if he got the gig, he wanted retribution on all the people who took away all of his licenses.

That's who I thought he watched. You want to revenge on the licensing bodies.

Yeah. He said in one speech that he wanted to abolish quote unnecessary boards and investigative body. So you know it's yeah, and so I have to say, he came surprisingly close to winning, Like, especially for a write in candidate, it was culd.

Crazy if that's what I was thinking. For a write in candidate, you have to get real enthusiasm to people were like.

Exciting, they were very excited. And there were accusations of vote tampering on all sides, like voter suppression. That's his supporters wanted him to ask for a recount, but he didn't want to spend the money for it. And so though he lost, he like remains undeterred and he's still like trying to grow the radio empire. Okay, so he doesn't they he finally loses that Kansas license. Oh, so he sets his sights on becoming what was called a border blaster.

It's a border blast, I'll tell you.

These were radio guys who took advantage of the fact that Mexico got kind of screwed when it came to the distribution of radio glassies in North America. So like the US gets the most, then Canada, and then like Mexico gets a small slice of it. So in response, they let radio folks do basically whatever they wanted.

Yes, and like the power are they right?

Yeah?

And they're super strong superstations.

So, like US citizens started building transmitters just over the border, and it's like great for the Mexican economy, and it's a nice middle finger to Uncle Sam.

In the fifties, Jack, Yeah, we're gonna get that.

So the AMA heard that John wanted to build a station at the border, and they flipped out.

I bet they.

So they worked with the US State Department to try and prevent it from happening. And like the Mexican government responded to their pleas with like a shrug. They did bar John from practicing medicine in Mexico, and so then he construction begins on a mega station with these three giant transmitters in via Acunya, just over the border from Del Rio Tech. It's now Ana Zarin, close your eyes, yes, I want you to picture it. It's October twenty first,

Love Sunshine Station between the Nations.

That's what they call themselves. Radio XCR notable for its eclectic programming and not in the medical sense. He continued to use the station as a platform for like touting the goat lands stuff. Oh my god, I can't practice medicine. Yeah, but that's not all. He also had like miracle cures and tonics. He like, actually he's talking about the goat glands, but he's like shifted away from the goat testicle transplants into goat elixir. But it isn't just like quack medicine QVC.

Yeah, they're like TBS and WGN superstition.

Yeah, and so remember because it operates across the border, not subject to broadcasting laws, so's he could just roll on unchecked for years. He does this, Wow, and it creates frustrations pirate completely. Yeah, so the US regulators are super frustrated about this. They have no control over this powerful signal and it's it actually kind of solidifies him as a radio pioneer, even though like his medical practices

Eventually Mexican like wait a minute.

So then the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission in the US just keeps putting more and more pressure on the Mexican government, and they come up with these international agreements regarding radio frequency interference, and that forces Brinkley to shut down XCR in nineteen thirty three.

Oh, not to underpower it, just shut it down.

So like he was, he was able to start it back up again. He changed the name to XCR A with it new era, and he took it up to one million watts?

Are you kidding?

No?

For that, I didn't even know you could do that.

Neither did I. By nineteen thirty nine, both governments are now like really putting the pressure on. They shut him down.

You're giving birds cancer. You cannot be doing a million.

But like the infrastructure of the station was really valuable, so it gets sold off to other l Yeah.

It had a million watts.

Yeah equipment XCRF, which in nineteen sixty three employed a DJ who described the signal as such, quote, we had the most powerful signal in North America. Birds dropped dead and too close to the tower. A car driving from New York to LA could would never lose the station. And that DJ, Robert Weston Smith aka Wolfman Jack, the famous raspy voiced radio personality. Well I couldn't do that. I'd never speak again.

So back to John, he was one of my favorite obviously early on, just as like I didn't obviously hear him on the radios as a kid, but like he was still a present like TV and movie came like late night movies instead Elvira, Oh.

My god, totally on. So John Brinkley, his he grows his wealth and his influence when he's in Mexico. But like his reputation just keeps deteriorating. Yeah, medical professionals, journalist. It's just one expose after another.

They're taking turns dunking on him.

Yeah, and then all the lawsuits keep growing about illnesses, figurements, and deaths from his operations. In nineteen thirty eight, he lost a major libel lawsuit against Morris Fishbine. He was the editor of the Journal of the American Medals, Yes Gemma. So Fishbine had publicly called John quote charlatan and his operations a quote racket. So John sued him, but then he lost. No, because like by the legal definition, you're

Mass communicating over here.

Yeah, and like that totally influences how future broadcasters and advertisers approach the medium. So he bridges this gap between like the quackery of the wagon entry and the mass media exploitation of the twentieth century. So that's him. What's your ridiculous takeaway?

I just love that you shock me with a story that's going I know is going to be about goat glands and human bodies, and still you end up delighting me with my man, well man, Jack, I couldn't. I did not see that coming at all, as a bit of a total surprise, and look at my face. I'm still delighted.

There's there's a lot that you don't say.

You know totally nothing I saw counting what was your ridiculous takeaway.

My ridiculous takeaway is that we have a lot to blame him for. And I'll just walk away from that.

He was an interesting precedent with a really long shadow.

Exactly exactly long shadow. You know what I do really need as a talkback day.

Oh my god, I.

Went get.

Hey, rude dudes. My name is B I've been listening since day one, and I started reading the books you guys recommended. One of the first was Air Force Alligator, and dear God, was that one of the biggest ridiculous crimes of all time? Awful book, absolutely awful. Glad I read it, though, so I look forward to reading the rest in Stay slazy.

Wait, B, I love you so much for you. You need to win all sorts of awards.

We're else need to give you some other books to read.

Oh that's beautiful. That's it for today. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also on social media. Email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and leave a talk back on the iHeart app Just reach Out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by Doctor of Goat Husbandry Dave Kusten, starring Annalys Rucker as chewed in. Research is by pirate radio personalities Marisa Brown and Andrea song

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.