The Goat Gonad Doctor Had His Medical License Revoked
While in California, Brinkley made over $40,000 – serious money back then – from surgeries performed on Hollywood stars. He liked the West Coast so much, he 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. Whatever his shortcomings as a doctor, Brinkley was a savvy entrepreneur who saw the potential of the then-new medium of radio. In 1923, he bought what came to be America’s fourth biggest radio station, KFKB, chiefly to market his medical practice. Before long, Brinkley was prescribing medications to his listeners. People wrote him, with $2 included in the envelope, he diagnosed them on air, then prescribed a medication.
The medication was typically only available in a Brinkley-owned pharmacy, or one with whom he had cut a deal for a cut of their profits. However, all good things come to an end, and in 1923, California tried to extradite Brinkley. Kansas’ governor refused to hand him over. Nonetheless, bad press – especially from a rival radio station on a mission to expose Brinkley as a fraud – continued to hound the goat gonads doctor. His popularity began to decline after stories emerged that his surgery was often filthy, and that Brinkley frequently operated on patients while drunk. By 1930, it emerged that Brinkley had signed over 40 death certificates for patients who had died during his goat testicle transplants. As a result, Kansas’ Medical Board revoked his license, stating that Brinkley “has performed an organized charlatanism … quite beyond the invention of the humble mountebank“.
