Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam

This is the story of John Brinkley and male potency. In addition to this wonderful story/history of CHARLATANS, Pope Brock is a marvelous writer. He's also sexy in a funny way, especially as many/most of the cures sold were virility oriented: `'Brinkley's ads with Daily News were a frank challenge to every man to look inside himself, or just look down: `Are You a Manly Man Full of Vigor?' The answer in many cases was happily no.'' In my many, many book reviews you'll never read the words, `'I couldn't put the book down.'' But that's what happened with Brock's CHARLATAN. The book defies imagination. Brinkley made his living by replacing men's testicles with goat testicles. Not only did the men feel more virile afterwards, they also reproduced! Men had always searched for a way to increase vigor. The early Greeks, Brock tells us, had an herb called satyrion that helped a man and his member stand ever upright--until the herb was harvested to extinction! Goats were always known for being randy, beginning with the great-god Pan, half-goat, half-man, a deflowerer of frisky boys and girls alike. With his profits Brinkley founded a football team named the Brinkley Goats. He also founded a hospital, a bank, brought lights to his town (we're in the late 1800s/early1900s), paved roads and started a zoo. He killed at least 42 people, but in 1930 this was not murder under the eyes of Kansas (a state, we learn, that had the world's first prohibition law in 1888!!!!!) I had some troubling questions as I read the book, but if you're patient you'll find the answers at the end: Brinkley wasn't a real doctor yet he replaced men's testicles with those of goats. How? This would certainly involve microsurgery. How could men procreate afterwards as they said they did? This is, naturally, impossible. That men THOUGHT they were more virile after the operation is highly possible; as women know, men (not unlike myself) are SO dumb. The book is fabulous. Here is a list of other fabulous books I've just read: THE WHITE HEADHUNTER by Randell, FOR THE THRILL OF IT by Baatz, PERKIN by Wroe, and a hilarious comedy: THE DREYFUS AFFAIR by Peter Lefcourt (although I wasn't turned on by Lefcourt's other books). My own books can be found on Amazon under Michael Hone.

Superbly crafted and enthralling...Brock’s droll style is perfect for this tale of trickery and credulity.

Great read - full of amazing lessons

I bought my first copy at a Dollar Tree, and at least five copies here. It's exhaustingly researched so the first half of the story seemed a little slow but by the end there is so much of American history and culture tied to this narrative that, if you wade through the backstory you'll wonder how history could be taught without this knowledge. It will amaze you with the resilience of the human body and shed light on some of our most iconic musical artists. Granted, I'm not your average reader, but if I invested in 6 copies to give away, there had to be some redeeming value in this story. A huge web of intrigue.

This is a fascinating and cautionary tale of John R. Brinkley who frightened men into giving him huge sums of their hard earned cash in return for cures for "man problems". Medical quackery has been around for ages and though hard to define, it is easy to recognize. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably quackery. Dr. Steven Barrett MD wrote an article that can found on the internet that states how difficult a black and white definition can be: "Quackery is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon. A practitioner may be scientific in many respects and only minimally involved in unscientific practices. Also, products and procedures can be useful for some purposes but worthless for others. For example: Vitamin B12 shots are lifesaving in cases of pernicious anemia, but giving them frequently to "pep you up" is a sign of poor judgment, greed, or both. Spinal manipulation may be effective for relief of appropriately selected cases of low back pain, but manipulation to correct chiropractic's imaginary "subluxations" is quackery." We've all seen infomercials where we've asked ourselves how can people buy into these crackpot schemes. This book gives a historical perspective on how gullible the public can be and how there is a trickster with his palm out awaiting payment. This is an interesting read. Well worth your time and money.....bg

Once I started this book, I could hardly bear to stop - I read it in two sittings. "Charlatan" has everything. A larger than life scoundrel ("Doctor" J.R. Brinkley) with his own personal Inspector Javert (famed quackbuster Morris Fishbein). Goat testicles, monkey glands, and other equally dubious aids to virility. Dirty campaign tactics. Outrageous marketing ploys. The birth of AM radio, country music, the Carter Family, and the blues. Will Dr Fishbein, head of the American Medical Association, be able to take down J.R. Brinkley, the consummate charlatan of the age, before the count of the maimed and the dead gets completely out of hand? Follow their astonishing 20-year cat and mouse game to its nailbiting courtroom showdown. You couldn't ask for a better guide than Pope Brock, who captures the outrageousness of this horrifying story brilliantly, with just the right kind of sly wit. "Charlatan" was hilarious, outrageous, informative, and hands down the most entertaining book I've read all year. (With special cameo appearances by W.B. Yeats and H.L. Mencken).