Pick of the Week

Charlatan : America's most dangerous huckster, the man who pursued him, and the age of flimflam

by Pope Brock

"In 1917, after years of selling worthless patent remedies throughout the Southeast, John R. Brinkley - America's most brazen young con man - arrived in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas. He set up a medical practice and introduced an outlandish surgical method using goat glands to restore the fading virility of local farmers." "It was all nonsense, of course, but thousands of paying customers quickly turned "Dr." Brinkley into America's richest and most famous surgeon. His notoriety captured the attention of the great quackbuster Morris Fishbein, who vowed to put the country's "most daring and dangerous" charlatan out of business." "Their cat-and-mouse game lasted throughout the 1920s and '30s, but despite Fishbein's efforts Brinkley prospered wildly."