He wasn't exactly pretending to be a doctor, at least not by the time he was famous.

I mean, there was a while in 1906, 1907, when Dr. John R. Brinkley was just flat out lying

about the doctor part in order to better sell some snake oil.

And so he bought a phony diploma through the mail.

And so he charged 25 bucks to inject people with what he called the new electric medicine

from Germany, which was actually just called water.

If you're shelling out to get water with food coloring shot into your arm, it's some

point that's on you.

Well, in 1915, John Romulus Brinkley spent 100 bucks in a year at the Eclectic Medical

University of Kansas City, and he could finally look a man in the eye and tell him he was

indeed a doctor, which I'd imagine would be reassuring to a man who came into his office

and looked for Kansas.

He handed over $750 for the privilege of having Dr. Brinkley cut him open in insert pieces

of goat testicles right there next to his own equipment.

Beginning in 1917, Dr. John R. Brinkley did thousands of these operations, promising

they'd cure impotence men, and eventually promising that sticking goat testicles into

people's bodies could fix up to 27 different common ailments.

The operation, as you'd imagine, was incredibly painful.

The recovery was long and miserable.

And after it was all over, you had pieces of goat ball inside you.

But people said they were cured.

And editor at the LA Times set out to expose Dr. Brinkley as a quack.

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