Many of his former patients couldn't hold back tears: "You have no idea what an amazing person and talented doctor he was!"

 

It was a windy and rainy October, and the weather did not bode well. George Travis, nicknamed Crooked Merin, a stubborn farmer from Kansas, was shopping in Milford and had stopped at the local drugstore.

Crooked Merin was in his sixties and in a bad mood. His wife was only thirty-six years old and had been nagging him from morning to night. He understood what was wrong, but there was hardly anyone to help him - could a dry tree blossom?

With these thoughts, trying to postpone his visit home for a while, Travis turned down a side street and tied the mules at the door of a tidy white house. Mr. Brinkley, the local apothecary, was glad to have a visitor: Milford, with its three hundred inhabitants cured of all diseases by corn moonshine, was a godforsaken shithole, and the apothecary was doing worse than ever.

The farmer asked the apothecary for some remedy for manhood, and Mr. Brinkley handed him a vial of cobra venom and rattlesnake fat (he had made it the day before from chili pepper, turpentine, and rancid pork fat). Crooked Merin cheered up, and the apothecary offered him a bottle of beer. A friendly conversation ensued that had important implications for American medicine, broadcasting, and advertising.

After taking to his soul, Crooked Merin lamented that his family life was not going well: "That damn woman is going to kill me or I'll kill her! She's giving me horns..."

The pharmacist listened and poured some water into his mug, but he was thinking about his own thoughts. It was 1917, neon lights were burning somewhere, ladies were being driven around in expensive cars, and he still couldn't get out of this hole. In the meantime, the farmer had finished his third bottle and asked him to tell him something from the field of medicine.

The obliging apothecary told him how he had worked as a doctor in a slaughterhouse. The work was not dusty, but the slaughterers were bothered by the Toggenburg goats.

Brinkley shared with a chuckle, "These animals are clearly cursed by God and their only virtue is that they don't smell. But in temperament they are second to none. They mated relentlessly day and night! Those who have not seen this bacchanalia for themselves will not believe it!"

Crooked Meryn drained the fourth bottle in one fell swoop, banged his fist on the table, and suddenly proposed: "Old boy, no kidding.... Do me a good deed and put that asshole's testicles in me!"

Brinkley couldn't believe his ears: the farmer had made such an offer obviously drunk. It took him about a minute to send his interlocutor away. But the farmer did not think of leaving.

He reached into his jacket pocket and laid out a wad of crumpled dollars: "Four hundred. Here's exactly four hundred. If it doesn't work out, no complaints. Be a man and put it in!"

The apothecary had to kick him out. But Crooked Meryn came the next day and added a hundred. Mr. Brinkley scratched the back of his head: five hundred was good money, but somehow he felt sorry for the farmer. He refused again.

The farmer took him by force and offered him five hundred and fifty. Brinkley broke down. Thus began the most unusual story of the twentieth century. Such a turn of events happened to Mr. Brinkley for the first time.

...A big Toggenburg goat, angrily tugging at the rope in the pharmacy courtyard, smells something bad. John Brinkley is boiling a tool. A subdued farmer waits for him in one of the rooms of the apothecary. Crooked Meryn believes "Doc" and he, in general, is not very wrong: Brinkley - although a fake doctor, but will give a head start to any of his fellow quacks.

As a young man Brinkley worked as a telegraph operator, in addition to helping to compose medicines for one doctor, who treated for venereal diseases. This experience became his initial medical education. After meeting the con artist James Crawford, he went with him to South Carolina, where he started a business with his new friend. Soon the couple became known as Greenville electromedical doctors.

For twenty-five dollars, the "doctors" gave injections of tinted distilled water to all comers, promising a burst of vigor and strength. Afraid of being exposed, they soon fled to Memphis. There, John Brinkley married 22-year-old Sally Wick.

In 1907, Brinkley and his wife settled in Chicago, where they had a daughter, Wanda, born on November 5. The young father enrolled in Bennett Medical College, an unaccredited institution.

To support his family, Brinkley worked at Western Union as a telegraph operator on the night shift and attended classes during the day. Soon a second daughter, Erna, was born, and two years later a third, Naomi. With his wife, the relationship did not work out.

In Memphis Brinkley met with 21-year-old Minerva Telita Jones, the daughter of a local doctor and four days after meeting made her an offer. Before the wedding, he promised his bride that he would become rich and famous. Surprisingly, the intelligent, educated girl believed him immediately.

No doubt Brinkley was no quack. Two hundred and ninety-nine of his Kansas colleagues could not have handled the operation he performed on the farmer. He had, strangely enough, succeeded.

It's hard to understand how: operations of such complexity were then made by a few people in the world. In Paris, Dr. Serge Voronoff: he became a celebrity after he transplanted monkey testes into a man. Dr. George Lidston in Chicago experimented with something similar. That's how medicine was approaching hormone therapy.

In this case, the surgeon had to work with jeweler's precision, and the probability that the transplanted tissue would take root was small. What happened in the Kansas town of Milford, other than a miracle can not be called a miracle: provincial self-taught healer performed the most complex operation, which he had hardly heard of, and his patient survived. And if only alive!

About a year later, a carriage stopped at the door of the pharmacy. A radiant and rejuvenated George Travis got off. He brought the apothecary a gift - two suckling piglets. Shaking Brinkley's hand in a friendly manner, he boasted: "Life is going well, and my wife is silky smooth. I had a son a month ago, and they named him Billy.

John Brinkley received up to 3,000 letters a day. He had to build a new post office in Milford and pay the salaries of its employees. Finally, he started Dr. Brinkley's National Pharmaceutical Association, which united pharmacists across America.

Brinkley became interested in politics and ran for governor of Kansas. The doctor prospered, raised roses and peacocks. He had his own airplane. Brinkley lived in a happy marriage and raised an heir, John Jr.

By 1937, Brinkley had become the richest medical man in North America. His fortune exceeded twelve million dollars. He was the owner of a huge house with a park, citrus plantations, oil wells, four Cadillacs, 115-foot yacht "Dr. Brinkley III". The Brinkley couple, along with their son Johnny Boy, traveled the world.

But fate was already preparing to deal him a powerful blow. What was it like to watch this monstrous enrichment of honest certified doctors?

In 1939, Dr. Maurice Fishbein published an article entitled "The Modern Medical Quack."

Trouble grew like a snowball. Authorities accused Brinkley of using the mail for commercial purposes and failing to pay taxes. Several lawsuits by patients dissatisfied with the results of surgeries were simultaneously pending in the courts.

Among other things, the request accused John Brinkley of immorality, addiction to alcohol, unprofessional behavior, and errors in medical practice.

In February 1941, the court declared Brinkley bankrupt. All these experiences did not go away. He suffered two heart attacks and had to have his leg amputated due to phlebothrombosis. On May 26, 1942, 56-year-old John Brinkley passed away. He was buried in Memphis, Tennessee.