Just a century ago, Dr. John R. Brinkley made a fortune with a dubious medical license and a radio station. He transplanted goat glands into aging patients to give them hope that they too might feel young and sexually active again. In 1930 though, all seemed lost. Thanks to accusations that he was a charlatan, the doctor surrendered both his license to practice in Kansas and his radio station.
Down, but not out, Brinkley used a short sighted agreement between the US and Canada about radio frequencies to return to the air. The nation of Mexico had been left out of the allotment. The good doctor approached, and quickly gained, approval to broadcast from just across the Texas border. He moved his operation to Del Rio and with a signal that covered the world, he went on the air again. This time, neither the AMA or the federal government were able to intervene.
Radio station XER (later XERA) was a border blaster station that beamed a signal of effectively one million watts across the US. When Brinkley was not recruiting patients on the air, he employed musicians to keep his audience entertained. The roster included several pickers from his boyhood home in western North Carolina, as well as the first family of county music, the Carter Family. For performing twice daily for six months a year, the Carters earned the equivalent of four years salary for the average person. Not bad during the depths of the Great Depression.
It all was going great for the goat gland doctor, who still performed surgery and prescribed meds over the air. He, like so many before and since, had found a way to give hope to those losing their vigor, regardless if it worked or not. Since the station was in Mexico, the feds could not touch him.
If this story hasn’t already served as a cautionary tale to us all about spending money on needless cures that won’t work as we try to preserve our youth, here is proof that our own vanity ultimately gets us in the end. In the AMA journal, establishment medical professionals labeled Dr. Brinkley a quack. He decided to get even by suing them. The case went to court. Brinkley lost, which opened the door to a flood of malpractice suits. Disgruntled patients who did not receive the life changing improvements Brinkley promised began to claw back all the money he made off them.
In less than three years, the stress got to Dr. Brinkley. Not even his own surgery could have saved him. He died broken and bankrupt. The hubris brought about by his popularity triggered the court action that spelled his doom. However, there is a silver lining to this cloud of quackery and false hope. Broadcasting country music to the nation helped create a thirst for the genre that has never been quenched.
As John Carter Cash, son of legendary performer Johnny Cash and June Carter (daughter of Mother Maybelle) said in Ken Burns’ documentary ‘Country Music,’ “If it weren’t for Dr. Brinkley, we wouldn’t know country music as it is today. So, thank you, Dr. Brinkley.”
Photos: The Carters in front of XERA and the vast antenna system of the station. Image courtesy of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top fame.
