Ah, the prostate. For
a nonmedically-employed spinster virgin, I know way more than I should about
prostates and the curious history of the treatment of what is now discretely
referred to as erectile dysfunction. Aside
from my one-time application to work at Osbon Medical Systems (a firm specializing
in vacuum-pump inflation of that certain portion of the male anatomy: a technique
perfected, and then, in a brilliant stroke of lucky timing, sold off by its
inventor just before the advent of Viagra), I hadn’t devoted any time to this
subject, but then I chanced to check out Pope Brock’s 2008 book Charlatan:
America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of
Flimflam, as my audiobook for the drive south for Thanksgiving.
A biography of “Doctor” John Brinkley, a snake-oil salesman
of superlative skill, with less talent with the scalpel, but no less enthusiasm
for all that, Charlatan chronicles how Brinkley came to convince hundreds, if
not thousands, of desperate men to allow him to insert freshly-harvested goat
testes into their own scrotums, debilitating many of these unfortunate fellows
far more than their original sad conditions, and costing at least 41 their
lives. And yet, as Brock points out,
there were other, better qualified, “real” physicians who at the same time were pushing sexual
rejuvenation techniques almost as strange, which were subscribed to by many of
the rich and famous. Their
occasionally-misguided researches eventually led to the synthesis of
testosterone, and to other gland-related breakthroughs, whereas Brinkley’s
broadcasts in efforts to bolster his quack enterprises gave birth to innovations
in totally unrelated fields, specifically: advertising, public relations,
modern political campaigning, and contemporary country music. But it did leave me wondering: who was the person who thought up the notion of injecting female human blood into rabbits to determine whether the woman was pregnant or not? Who made the connection between the rabbit dying and the woman being pregnant? Or is that an old wives tale about medical practice of yore? I think a fascinating history course would be an overview of the development of medicine, and how we have come to define medicine as it is today, how some ideas have revolved in and out of favor in both “legitimate” and what I’ll delicately call “peripheral” medical practice, and how there is always some sucker out there willing to spend good money on cure-alls and powders promising him he'll be a god, at least from the waist down, after application.
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