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Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | 
 enlarge | Author: Pope Brock
Creator: Johnny Heller
Publisher: Tantor Media
Category: Book
List Price: $24.99
Buy New: $14.73
You Save: $10.26 (41%)
New (16) Used (8) from $8.85
Avg. Customer Rating:  26 reviews
Sales Rank: 1820148
Format: Audiobook, Cd
Media: MP3 CD
Edition: MP3 Una
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.6 x 0.6
ISBN: 1400156076
Dewey Decimal Number: 615.856
EAN: 9781400156078
ASIN: 1400156076
Publication Date: February 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| • | Hardcover - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Paperback - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Audio CD - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Audio Download - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him and the Age of Flimflam (Unabridged) | | • | Unknown Binding - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam: Library Edition | | • | Kindle Edition - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam | | • | Audio CD - Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam |
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Product Description
Witness the rise and fall of the greatest medical con man of all time in this enormously entertaining story of how a fraudulent surgeon made a fortune by inserting goats' testes into impotent American men.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 21 more reviews...
 Things haven't really changed all that much, have they? July 20, 2008
I got this book after seeing the author on C-SPAN II's "About Books", and as an amateur medical historian, decided to purchase it when the library didn't have it. It seems that all the factors came together to make John Brinkley a rich and famous (and later broken) man, and that he introduced the Western Hemisphere to some fabulous music didn't hurt his cause either.
I was completely surprised to read that the respected surgeon Max Thorek, who now has a hospital in Chicago named after him, was a participant in this scam! But unlike Brinkley, he knew what he was doing, surgically, and abandoned this project when it proved worse than useless.
His wife's story appears to be at least as interesting as his, too.
Fabullllllllllllllllous June 30, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I picked up this book after reading its 5 star review in an Audio magazine.
Every page makes you laugh at the man's marketing acumen. Its a timely books since I am dealing with such sleazes in my life right now.
I sometimes wonder how people like these can sleep in the night knowing they are coning others in broad day light.
If you want to know the mind of a scoundrel, this book is for you.
Great Read but Brinkeley was not the greatest quack May 25, 2008
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
CHARLATON by Pope Brock
A fascinating book that chronicles the rise and fall of the man who is generally considered to be the most successful quack in American history, John Brinkley, and his pursuit by Morris Fishbein, the legendary chief of the AMA.
Brock does a good job of explaining the time and characteristics of the golden age of American quackery, Brinkley began his career as a quack in the first part of the twentieth century, after working in patent medicine shows, in the Midwest, wore a Van Dyke beard and moustache, owned and a radio station which he used to promote his quackery, furnished his mansion with an assortment of bizarre and ostentatious souvenirs, and was an anti-Semite.
Brinkley, who had no medical degree, nevertheless became a licensed physician and surgeon in 12 states and surgically implanted goat testes into patients, at $750 a pop, and sold worthless and often even harmful medicines, which he prescribed over the radian, at drugstores that advertised his products and then paid Brinkley a commission on every medicine sold. His average annual income, in the middle of the depression, was $12 million a year, compared to the average MD GP who was earning about $3500 at that time.
Fishbein, aided by the famous editor and social critic H.L.Mencken, who led a crusade against quackery for more than 30 years, first as the editor of JAMA and the as the chief of the AMA, eventually cornered and exposed Brinkley in 1939, who died soon after.
All-in-all, Charlatan is a great read that most people will enjoy immensely although there are several points that the author makes that I think should have been developed more. First, although Brock alludes briefly to this, Fishbein considered not just Brinkely, BJ, and other obvious frauds as quacks, but also optometrists, podiatrists, DOs most of whom were received medical training comparable to MDs, and even opposed nurse midwives and nurse anesthesiologists. He was a social and political reactionary who was as passionately opposed to group medical practice by MDs as he was to any medical practice by anyone other than an MD, including quacks.
Secondly, John Brinkley was not America's most successful quack. Brinkley was an imposter. The most "successful" quack in American history by any standard was BJ Palmer.the "developer" of chirpractic, which Brock acknowledges caused the death of Eugene V. Debs and undoubtedly many, many others over the past 110 years since it's "discovery". Palmer, like Brinkeley, began his career as a quack in the first part of the twentieth century, after working in patent medicine shows in the Midwest, also wore a Van Dyke beard and moustache, also owned and a radio station which he used to promote his quackery, also furnished his mansion with an assortment of bizarre and ostentatious souvenirs, and also was an anti-Semite.
The chiropractic quack cult is declining but it is still defrauding hundreds of thousands of patients, public and private insurance, and thousands students, out of tens of millions of dollars a year. BJ Palmer was without question the most successful quack in American history.
 The demise of "Quacks" and the rise of the The A.M.A. May 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
With 20 pages of notes, it is evident that the author has a great story to relate of a not too long ago history of medical quacks with absurd promises of renewed health and restored youth. The story of the book's "Charlatan" is complete with all of the gory details. I enjoyed reading it thinking that the "era" has ended, but has it really? I found the story of Dr. Morris Fishbein and the somewhat difficult development of the A.M.A. to be of a redeeming second story of the book. The details of Del Rio becoming "Hillbilly Heaven" along with other unbeliveable, in this generation, stories of greed and gullibility was enjoyable reading. Alas, reading of the great fortunes and mansions being built today, there are, no doubt, "charlatans" out there by other names.
Goat gland doctor from Kansas May 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I purchased this book on a colleagues recommendation and read it on a trip t o Brazil. I could hardly put it down. The author writes in an extrememly amusing way of a little known chapter in the history of the US in the early part of the 20th century. It is hard to believe that such recent history has so little to do with modern medicine.
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