Excellent Doctor John Romulus Brinkley And Goat Testicle Transplants We Shield Millions : We Shield Millions - Part 2 by Brett Matthew West Artwork by avmurray at FanArtReview.com

(Though not on FanStory much these days, due to circumstances both on and off site, did find an old chapter I had not previously posted.) ..."For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on we will present the Grand Ole Opry"... - George Dewey Hay ***************************** ***************************** In Part 1 of We Shield Millions, I examined radio station KDKA in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. KDKA is considered the Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World. Most sources list this station as the first commercial radio station in the United States. Whether it was or not is not really relevant. However, KDKA played an enormous part in the progression chain that eventually led to the establishment of the Grand Ole Opry, the longest continuously running radio program in history. In Part 2, I will discuss one of the most bizarre traveling medicine shows ever known to exist, and Doctor John Romulus Brinkley. He, too, was a link along the progression chain. Located in the Upper Central Eastern County of Geary, the second-smallest county in the state of Kansas based on land area, the township of Milford is regarded as the "City of Beautiful Sunsets" mainly because of its location on the shores of Milford Lake. Milford contains almost as many creeks, four of them, as it does residents...well, almost. It was in this out-of-the-way hole-in-the-wall Doctor John Romulus Brinkley amassed his fortune and became one of the biggest quacks in American history. In 1918, Brinkley opened a sixteen-room clinic in the small town and managed to save several lives during the Spanish Flu global influenza pandemic. Soon you will see why I used the term "managed". Milford was about seven miles from the military installation of Fort Riley, where the earliest documented case of the ailment is believed to have occurred on March 11 of that year. It has been reported upwards of 100 million victims died from the Spanish Flu worldwide. These actions were not Brinkley's claim to fame. He lacked accredited education as a doctor, and purchased his medicine degree from the "diploma mill" known as the Electic Medical University in Kansas City on May 7, 1915. Brinkley became famous as the "Goat Gland Doctor" in which he performed the transplantation of goat testicles into men as a means to cure male impotence, and a wide variety of ailments. You read that correctly, goat testicles. Brinkley opened several hospitals in multiple states where he practiced medicine for almost twenty years although the medical community at large discredited his techniques. Hundreds of thousands of people in Kansas liked Brinkley. He also launched two bids for Governor and nearly won election in one of them as a write-in candidate. Eventually stripped of his medical license in 1923, Brinkley began radio station KFKB "Kansas First, Kansas Best." He broadcasted personally dispensed medical advice, invited listeners to his clinics, and assured them "a man is as old as his glands". Other features transmitted on KFKB included lectures, baseball, national events, crop reports, weather forecasts, as well as live music by "Uncle Bob" Larkan and his Music Makers band. Larkan was an Arkansas state champion fiddler, who once won a fiddle contest that awarded him twelve dollars, a barrel of flour, and 26 chicks he raised in a box by his bed. Listeners would write into KFKB with their ailments. Brinkley then prescribed medicine for them though they were unknown to him and he went by descriptions of the ailments sent to him. This program was known as "The Medical Question Box." In addition, Brinkley was credited as the radio pioneer who began the Mexican Border Blaster radio faze. These were broadcast stations not licensed as an external service, and usually located in Southern Texas, that targeted a Mexican listenership. This was Brinkley's 1000 watt radio station XER in Villa Acuna, Mexico, across from Del Rio, Texas. XER could be heard in cities around the United States, and had a slogan of "The Sunshine Station in the Heart of the Nation." Author Notes Goats with a Character, by avmurray, selected to complement this chapter. In Part 3, and next on the progression line, I will highlight radio station KFKB in Shenandoah, Iowa, that was known as "Keep Friendly, Never Frown," and radio station KMA, in the same city, that was known as "The Corn Belt Station in the Heart of the Nation."

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