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People Tried Unworkable Methods to Ward off Illness Outbreaks in History

Khalid Elhassan March 31, 2020 33 min

Physician - Goat gland — Brinkley's hospital operating room. Imgur

9. The Animal Testicle Implant Craze

A 1922 news article about Brinkley. WNC Magazine

Brinkley’s goat testicle implants were not unique at the time: he had a rival, who specialized in transplanting monkey balls into men’s testicles. However, goat gonads caught on more than monkey balls, and as Brinkley’s fame grew, he widened the list of ailments cured by his procedure to include flatulence, dementia, and cancer.

By 1922, Brinkley was a celebrity, and he traveled to LA to perform a transplant on a Los Angeles Times editor. While in California, he made over $40,000 – serious money back then – from surgeries performed on Hollywood stars. Brinkley liked the West Coast so much, he decided to set up a practice there, complete with a goat farm. However, the California Medical Board denied him a license after finding his resume was “riddled with lies and discrepancies“. Undaunted, Brinkley returned to Kansas, and expanded his Milford clinic.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.