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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: $4.60
You Save: $20.35 (82%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (32 reviews)
Sales Rank: 23695
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
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
Release Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 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 6 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.
 The demise of "Quacks" and the rise of the The A.M.A. May 19, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
With 20 pages of notes, it is evident that the author has a great story to relate of a not too long ago history of medical quacks with absurd promises of renewed health and restored youth. The story of the book's "Charlatan" is complete with all of the gory details. I enjoyed reading it thinking that the "era" has ended, but has it really? I found the story of Dr. Morris Fishbein and the somewhat difficult development of the A.M.A. to be of a redeeming second story of the book. The details of Del Rio becoming "Hillbilly Heaven" along with other unbeliveable, in this generation, stories of greed and gullibility was enjoyable reading. Alas, reading of the great fortunes and mansions being built today, there are, no doubt, "charlatans" out there by other names.
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