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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

6. Running for Governor to Get Re-licensed as a Doctor

John R. Brinkley campaigning for governor. Kansas Historical Society

Things went from bad to worse for Brinkley. Six months after he lost his license to practice medicine, the Federal Radio Commission (predecessor of today’s FCC) refused to renew Brinkley’s radio station’s license. The federal agency determined that the famous doctor’s broadcasts were mostly advertising, in violation of his radio license, as well as being obscene and against the public interest.

The twin blows from the state and federal authorities put a major crimp on Brinkley’s cash flow, and things quickly began to go south for him. Other than appeal, there was little he could do about the lost radio license. However, to get the medical license back, Brinkley hit upon an ingenious solution: run for governor of Kansas. As governor, he could appoint his own members to the Medical Board, and thus get his license back.

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.