Dr Brinkley, Goat Gland Quack & Radio Pioneer
This is a very interesting & colourful piece of history..... 12 million dollars he made in the 30s & 40s for dodgy operations that were some times fatal, and a dodgy radio station so powerful it killed birds !
In "comic" version, its quite entertaining; http://www.matthewmusial.com/brnkpgs/brnkpgs.htm
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While often called "Dr. Brinkley", he was never legally a doctor. After selling snake oil across the South he decided to go legit and went to medical school in Chicago. He unfortunately ran out of money and never finished medical school. He left town to avoid having to pay his back tuition. He would spend the the rest of his life working under "provisional medical licenses" or no license at all. He would get an honorary doctorate in Italy in order to use the word doctor before his name, but when word of his true character got out his doctorate was personally revoked by Benito Mussolini. Yes, he was too sketchy for Mussolini - See more at: http://www.thecarpetbagger.org/2013/....srQIgkTZ.dpuf
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John R. Brinkley was born on July 8, 1885 in Jackson County, North Carolina. He grew up in that area and attended medical schools in Chicago and Kansas City, Missouri, before setting up a medical practice in Milford, Kansas in 1917. He had received a degree from the Kansas City Eclectic Medical University on May 7, 1915. Brinkley took the Arkansas state medical board examination and received a license to practice in Kansas because of a reciprocity agreement between the two states. In addition to his medical practice, Brinkley operated a drugstore stocked with patent medicines. Shortly after moving to Milford, Brinkley reportedly transplanted a goat testicle into a human. The operation, aimed at sexual rejuvenation, was declared a success and gained Brinkley his “goat gland doctor” reputation.
Brinkley, while practicing in Milford, decided to establish a radio station to “entertain his patients.” In 1923, he received a license for radio station KFKB, known as Kansas First, Kansas Best. Brinkley soon used KFKB to promote his medical activities and provide entertainment to his listening audience in several states, as well as the hospital. It was Brinkley’s practice of prescribing medicine over the air in response to letters from patients and listeners that created problems with the Kansas State Medical Board and the Federal Communications Commission. He had organized a state wide association of druggists and would suggest prescriptions by number, obtainable from Brinkley druggists for the various symptoms described by his radio patients.
More http://www.kshs.org/p/john-r-brinkley-papers/13988
