Brinkley's Trial

A dignified blond man climbed to the witness stand in the Del Rio, Tex. court house, stroked his goatee with a white, diamond-starred hand and announced:"I am the man who originated the goat gland operation." It was Dr. John Richard Brinkley, famed Kansas "rejuvenator", who for the fourth time was suing Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the American Medical Association's publication Hygeia. Dr. Fishbein, who at the moment had his back turned on Plaintiff Brinkley, appeared unconcerned over Brinkley's demand for $250,000. Last year in Hygeia Dr. Fishbein described Brinkley as a "quack" and a "charlatan". Dr. Brinkley claimed that these statements were libelous, that as a result his annual income fell from $1,100,000 in 1937 to $810,000 in 1938.

When Dr. Fishbein took the stand he boldly repeated to an eager audience of former Brinkley patients and local high-school students that Brinkley was a "quack." He defined the word as "a person who makes extravagant or blatant claims as to his own ability in the field of science or medicine," pointed out that Brinkley had never submitted a description of his rejuvenating operations or drugs to a recognized scientific publication, declared that A. M. A. chemists had found Brinkley's prize rejuvenation medicine to consist of water, a dye (methylene blue) and a little hydrochloric acid, none of which possesses any rejuvenating properties.

After deliberating six hours, the Federal jury returned a verdict in favor of Dr. Fishbein. But no one believed for a moment that the adverse verdict would blight "Goat-gland" Brinkley's flourishing business.

John Richard Brinkley is a doctor by virtue of a degree from the defunct Eclectic Medical University in Kansas City, whence he was graduated 25 years ago. In 1917 he began furnishing impotent men with goat glands, and by 1933 when he discontinued the treatment (for simpler methods) he had performed 5,000 "rejuvenating" operations. Since 1933 he has treated his hopeful patients with the blue fluid which Dr. Fishbein was so bearish about and with simple prostate operations. For a series of treatments with 1/3-ounce ampules of the drug, Dr. Brinkley often charges $250. Operations sometimes cost as much as $1,500.

From all over the U. S. men flocked to the gaudy Brinkley sanatorium at Milford, Kans. and in headphone days Dr. Brinkley began to operate a radio station called KFKB ("Kansas First, Kansas Best"). In 1930 the Kansas Medical Board revoked his medical license for "unprofessional conduct," and the Federal Radio Commission refused to renew his broadcasting license. Undaunted, Brinkley leaped into the Governorship campaign on a "vindication ticket," polling 183,000 votes on a write-in ballot. In 1932 and 1934 he again aspired to the Governorship, but was badly beaten both times by Alf Landon.

He then went to Mexico and bought a radio station in Villa Acuna, across the Rio Grande from Del Rio, Tex. Station XERA, called "Sunshine between the Nations," has an official wattage of 350,000 although the claim is that Brinkley recently stepped it up to 1,000,000 watts. (Since Cincinnati's station WLW lost its experimental license to use 500,000 watts, no U. S. station is permitted over 50,000.) Every night powerful XERA blares out boosts not only for Brinkley's treatments but for hair dye, life insurance, oranges, perfume and "doctor's book." The latter sells for $1, complete with pictures of Dr. Brinkley, his wife Minnie Telitha, their white-stucco home, six-story brick hospital and son "Johnnie Boy." Since XERA drowns out every station in the neighborhood, rates for XERA-time run as high as $1,700 an hour.

In 1937 Brinkley established another hospital in Little Rock, Ark. Every Monday in his private plane he flies to Little Rock from Del Rio, and every Thursday he flies home again. At the airport pretty Mrs. Brinkley meets him in their 16-cylinder scarlet Cadillac, which looks like a fire engine and has "Dr. Brinkley" printed on the body. She drives him to their $100,000 red, white and blue estate called "Palm Drive in Hudson Gardens," in the suburbs of Del Rio. On the estate's three iron gates, which are guarded by two huskies and three biting geese, are blazoned the words "Dr. Brinkley," and at night "Dr. Brinkley" gleams in neon lights over the splashing fountains and the swimming pool. The green lawns and blue paths are studded with statues, and over the red front door sits, as a symbol, a small ivory stork.

In the summers the Brinkleys and eleven-year-old Johnnie Boy go for pleasure trips on their long, white yacht (their third), Dr. Brinkley III. At present Brinkley is consulting his astrologer, harsh-voiced, blondined Rose Dawn, who broadcasts over XERA, about his chances for the Presidency. To date, says pleasant, sociable Mrs. Brinkley, the doctor has received "500,000 unsolicited letters" urging him to run in 1940.

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