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Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | 
 enlarge | Author: Pope Brock
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $11.95
You Save: $13.00 (52%)
New (33) Used (22) Collectible (2) from $9.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 22956
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4
ISBN: 0307339882
Dewey Decimal Number: 615.856
EAN: 9780307339881
ASIN: 0307339882
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: New.
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| • | Paperback - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Audio CD - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Audio Download - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him and the Age of Flimflam (Unabridged) | | • | MP3 CD - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Unknown Binding - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam: Library Edition | | • | Kindle Edition - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Audio CD - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam |
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Product Description
In 1917, after years of selling worthless patent remedies throughout the Southeast, John R. Brinkley–America’s most brazen young con man–arrived in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas. He set up a medical practice and introduced an outlandish surgical method using goat glands to restore the fading virility of local farmers.
It was all nonsense, of course, but thousands of paying customers quickly turned “Dr.” Brinkley into America’s richest and most famous surgeon. His notoriety captured the attention of the great quackbuster Morris Fishbein, who vowed to put the country’s “most daring and dangerous” charlatan out of business.
Their cat-and-mouse game lasted throughout the 1920s and ’30s, but despite Fishbein’s efforts Brinkley prospered wildly. When he ran for governor of Kansas, he invented campaigning techniques still used in modern politics. Thumbing his nose at American regulators, he built the world’s most powerful radio transmitter just across the Rio Grande to offer sundry cures, and killed or maimed patients by the score, yet his warped genius produced innovations in broadcasting that endure to this day. By introducing country music and blues to the nation, Brinkley also became a seminal force in rock ’n’ roll. In short, he is the most creative criminal this country has ever produced.
Culminating in a decisive courtroom confrontation that pit Brinkley against his nemesis Fishbein, Charlatan is a marvelous portrait of a boundlessly audacious rogue on the loose in an America that was ripe for the bamboozling.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 23 more reviews...
 Making the world safe for Viagra August 7, 2008
John R. Brinkley is the man of the title, who was one of a handful of pseudo-scientists and medical hucksters who laid the groundwork for Viagra and its competitors by experimenting with methods to improve male potency. Operating in the 1920s through the 1940s in small towns like Greenville, South Carolina, Mitford, Kansas and Del Rio, Texas, Brinkley was basically a small-time hustler who stumbled on sexual dysfunction as fertile ground for his talents.
So he began operating on the fringes of medicine, with a small smattering of training and dubious degrees from what we would now call "alternative" sources (alternative to the now much stronger American Medical Association, which derived much of its current cache and strength from battles with Brinkley and his compatriots on the fringe). Among other methods, he implanted goat testicles! Fringe medicine, indeed; without specific numbers (the true totals are probably unknown), Brock cites Brinkley as one of if not the most prolific of American serial killers based on the death rate from untested and insane techniques like these.
Pressed by the AMA, Brinkley expanded into mass marketing, politics, franchising of pharmaceuticals (at least one of which was found to be pure water with a tiny amount of coloring) and the fledgling field of radio. Brinkley's downfall, as Brock describes in a rather abrupt coda, came at the hands of a civil court when he sued Morris Fishbein, the AMA's head huckster hunter, for libel, and lost, finally (for the unsuspecting public) and disastrously (for him) exposing himself as the fraud the AMA claimed.
While the book was an enjoyable and easy-to-read introduction to this bizarre character (proof, yet again, of the truth-stranger-than-fiction axiom), I am only giving the book three stars for these two reasons: First, while a few primary sources are cited in the bibliography, the notes rely most heavily on a small handful of secondary sources, which makes me wonder if these earlier secondary sources may tell a more complete picture of the era. Two of the secondary sources cited:
The roguish world of Doctor Brinkley
The Bizarre Careers of John R. Brinkley.(Book Review): An article from: Journal of Southern History
And secondly, while the truth indeed is strange here, Brock sometimes seems afraid to let the story tell itself, and tries too hard to pump it up with purple prose and overdone dramatics.
Enjoy Brock's book, but if you are really interested in mining the details of Brinkley and his era, use the bibliography and notes as a reading list for digging deeper.
 Things haven't really changed all that much, have they? July 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I got this book after seeing the author on C-SPAN II's "About Books", and as an amateur medical historian, decided to purchase it when the library didn't have it. It seems that all the factors came together to make John Brinkley a rich and famous (and later broken) man, and that he introduced the Western Hemisphere to some fabulous music didn't hurt his cause either.
I was completely surprised to read that the respected surgeon Max Thorek, who now has a hospital in Chicago named after him, was a participant in this scam! But unlike Brinkley, he knew what he was doing, surgically, and abandoned this project when it proved worse than useless.
His wife's story appears to be at least as interesting as his, too.
O my our folly! July 20, 2008
By the end of the book, I really didn't know what to think of John Brinkley. This is a great biography and case study of a man who was viewed as the greatest medical doctor, a man ahead of his time, a genius, a charlatan, a people's man, an innovative politician, and a mass murderer. Who he was depends on who you ask.
Back in the early 1900s snake oil doctors were common. People flocked to such doctors for all kinds of remedies, and had faith in the cures they were given. Most if not all such cures did not work. If some worked, it was the result of the `placebo' effect. In other words, when a person believes that a medicine given to him will work, in some instances the patient's belief alone makes him feel better.
Dr. John Brinkley noticed that goats were very sexually active. He therefore concluded that if goat testicles were implanted in humans, humans will turn into sexual beasts. In other words, goat testicles would be a cure for all sexual ailments, such as impotency. Without ever publishing his findings or doing serious research, he started implanting goat testicles in his patients. As later court testimony would show, in most cases he simply put the goat testicles in his patients without grafting them surgically. Many of his patients died as a result of this procedure, and many others were maimed for the remainder of their life. But nobody could stop John Brinkley for years, not even the government or the medical board. He became a multi-millionaire as a result of this bogus procedure, and lived a lavish life with a private yacht and a private aircraft. Remember this was the early 1900s!
The book reads like a John Grisham novel. The book starts off with John Brinkley's life as a youth, and what motivated him to become a charlatan. It describes all of his medical procedures, and the fortune he amassed as a result. It describes his stint as a candidate for governorship, and how he changed the face of voting. He actually invented the strategies used today by running candidates. This chapter was very interesting and captivating.
In order to have his ideas widespread, Brinkley built his own radio station in 1923. When this was closed by the government, he went across the border to Mexico and opened a radio station there. He was a very stubborn man, but very intuitive. He easily surmounted challenges, and was not afraid of the US government. The chapters on his radio stations were interesting and funny, and made for excellent reading.
The book then goes on relating the court cases that finally exposed Brinkley as a fraud. As a result, his former patients sue him, and he is ruined. The medical board removes his license, and the government charges him with manslaughter. He soon dies thereafter, having never appeared in court to answer the manslaughter charges.
This book will captivate you. Snake oil doctors are still among us today, and many of us still fall for their folly. The actor Steve McQueen believed that a Mexican healer had the power to cure his cancer that he flew to him to Mexico. Many today use the power of Shamans and other sorcerers to cure their ailments. Some of these cures work. But do they work because they are genuine cures or because of the `placebo' effect? In reality, no one knows.
How many of us buy beauty products thinking they would actually rejuvenate us? Do all those supplemental vitamins work? The vitamin industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, but many doctors today would tell you that supplemental vitamins do very little good, and at times, might in fact be very harmful. Our vitamins should derive from a balanced diet, and not from the intake of pills. But by in-taking pills, we make many people very rich!
This is a great case study of a character still very alive today! And our folly is still as alive!
Fabullllllllllllllllous June 30, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked up this book after reading its 5 star review in an Audio magazine.
Every page makes you laugh at the man's marketing acumen. Its a timely books since I am dealing with such sleazes in my life right now.
I sometimes wonder how people like these can sleep in the night knowing they are coning others in broad day light.
If you want to know the mind of a scoundrel, this book is for you.
Great Read but Brinkeley was not the greatest quack May 25, 2008
3 out of 5 found this review helpful
CHARLATON by Pope Brock
A fascinating book that chronicles the rise and fall of the man who is generally considered to be the most successful quack in American history, John Brinkley, and his pursuit by Morris Fishbein, the legendary chief of the AMA.
Brock does a good job of explaining the time and characteristics of the golden age of American quackery, Brinkley began his career as a quack in the first part of the twentieth century, after working in patent medicine shows, in the Midwest, wore a Van Dyke beard and moustache, owned and a radio station which he used to promote his quackery, furnished his mansion with an assortment of bizarre and ostentatious souvenirs, and was an anti-Semite.
Brinkley, who had no medical degree, nevertheless became a licensed physician and surgeon in 12 states and surgically implanted goat testes into patients, at $750 a pop, and sold worthless and often even harmful medicines, which he prescribed over the radian, at drugstores that advertised his products and then paid Brinkley a commission on every medicine sold. His average annual income, in the middle of the depression, was $12 million a year, compared to the average MD GP who was earning about $3500 at that time.
Fishbein, aided by the famous editor and social critic H.L.Mencken, who led a crusade against quackery for more than 30 years, first as the editor of JAMA and the as the chief of the AMA, eventually cornered and exposed Brinkley in 1939, who died soon after.
All-in-all, Charlatan is a great read that most people will enjoy immensely although there are several points that the author makes that I think should have been developed more. First, although Brock alludes briefly to this, Fishbein considered not just Brinkely, BJ, and other obvious frauds as quacks, but also optometrists, podiatrists, DOs most of whom were received medical training comparable to MDs, and even opposed nurse midwives and nurse anesthesiologists. He was a social and political reactionary who was as passionately opposed to group medical practice by MDs as he was to any medical practice by anyone other than an MD, including quacks.
Secondly, John Brinkley was not America's most successful quack. Brinkley was an imposter. The most "successful" quack in American history by any standard was BJ Palmer.the "developer" of chirpractic, which Brock acknowledges caused the death of Eugene V. Debs and undoubtedly many, many others over the past 110 years since it's "discovery". Palmer, like Brinkeley, began his career as a quack in the first part of the twentieth century, after working in patent medicine shows in the Midwest, also wore a Van Dyke beard and moustache, also owned and a radio station which he used to promote his quackery, also furnished his mansion with an assortment of bizarre and ostentatious souvenirs, and also was an anti-Semite.
The chiropractic quack cult is declining but it is still defrauding hundreds of thousands of patients, public and private insurance, and thousands students, out of tens of millions of dollars a year. BJ Palmer was without question the most successful quack in American history.
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