There’s a New Yorker cartoon that shows a billboard planted in a field of sheep with a picture of a wolf that reads, “I am going to eat you.” One of the sheep says to another sheep, “He tells it like it is.” Brinkley was the wolf in this analogy while his patients were the sheep. At Brinkley’s funeral in 1942, an anonymous man in the crowd supposedly confessed, “I knowed [sic] he was bilking me, but…I liked him anyway.”[29]
Miracles may in fact exist, but don’t expect someone to sell them to you.
Notes
1 1 Tozzi J and Hopkins JS. The little blue pill: an oral history of Viagra. Bloomberg [Internet]. 2017 Dec 11. Available from: https://www .bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-11/the-little-blue-pill-an-oral-history-of-viagra
2 2 Ibid.
3 3 Foley KE. Out of the blue pill: Viagra’s famously surprising origin story is actually a pretty common way to find new drugs. Quartz [Internet]. 2017 Sept 10. Available from: https://qz.com/1070732/viagras-famously-surprising-origin-story-is-actually-a-pretty-common-way-to-find-new-drugs/
4 4 Tozzi J and Hopkins JS. The little blue pill: an oral history of Viagra. Bloomberg [Internet]. 2017 Dec 11. Available from: https://www .bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-12-11/the-little-blue-pill-an-oral-history-of-viagra
5 5 Rudd J. From Viagra to Valium, the drugs that were discovered by accident. The Guardian [Internet]. 2017 Jul 11. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/11/from-viagra-to-valium-the-drugs-that-were-discovered-by-accident
6 6 Pinsker J. Why we live 40 years longer today than we did in 1880. The Atlantic [Internet]. 2013 Nov. Available from: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/die-another-day/309541/
7 7 Foley KE. Out of the blue pill: Viagra’s famously surprising origin story is actually a pretty common way to find new drugs. Quartz [Internet]. 2017 Sept 10. Available from: https://qz.com/1070732/viagras- famously-surprising-origin-story-is-actually-a-pretty-common-way-to-find-new-drugs/
8 8 Naish J. Is Viagra a cure or a curse? As Britain is the first country to make it available over the counter, John Naish on the wonder sex drug. Daily Mail [Internet]. 2017 Dec 1. Available from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5134761/A-cure-curse-JOHN-NAISH-wonder-sex-drug.html
9 9 Adams SH. The Great American Fraud. OTB ebook Publishing; 2016.
10 10 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
11 11 Lane P. Nuts! [film]. 2016.
12 12 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
13 13 Lane P. Nuts! [film]. 2016.
14 14 Gordon RJ. The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living Since the Civil War. The Princeton Economic History of the Western World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press; 2016.
15 15 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
16 16 Wu T. The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. New York: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; 2016.
17 17 Lane P. Nuts! [film]. 2016
18 18 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
19 19 Alexander S. Powerless placebos. Slate Star Codex [Internet]. 2018 Jan 31. Available from: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/01/31/powerless-placebos/?platform=hootsuite
20 20 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
21 21 The case of Brinkley vs. Fishbein: proceedings of a libel suit based on an article published in Hygeia. Jama Network [Internet] 1939 May 13; 112(19):1952–68. Available from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/288277
22 22 Vigen T. Spurious correlations. [Internet]. Available from: http://www .tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations
23 23 Washington L. What’s the stock market got to do with the production of butter in Bangladesh? CNN Money [Internet]. 1998 Mar 1. Available from: https://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_ archive/1998/03/01/238606/index.htm
24 24 Kindley E. Nuts!: a questionable cure for impotence. The New Republic [Internet]. 2016 Jul 22. Available from: https://newrepublic.com/ article/135422/nuts-questionable-cure-impotence
25 25 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
26 26 Lane P. Nuts! [film]. 2016
27 27 Allen F. Since yesterday: The 1930s in America. New York: Open Road Media; 1931.
28 28 Brock P. Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam. New York: Three Rivers Press; 2008.
29 29 Ibid.
CHAPTER 2 How to Sell Anything
There are some frauds so well conducted that it would be stupidity not to be deceived by them.
—Charles Cotton
The Eiffel Tower is one of the most recognizable and well-trafficked monuments in the world. Each year, it’s estimated well over six million visitors wait in long lines to experience this gorgeous landmark. It may be hard to believe, but when it was built the tower was subject to ridicule and was only supposed to stand for 20 years before being disassembled.
Gustave Eiffel designed his namesake tower for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. No one had ever built a structure so tall before so the fact that it was erected in just over two years is a technical feat that was unparalleled at the time. Naysayers told Eiffel the tower would be impossible to build. The wind would make it too dangerous for people to ascend to such heights and the government wasn’t keen on spending an estimated $1 million on the project. His contract stipulated that the tower would be allowed to stand for 20 years to be able to earn enough of a profit to make it worthwhile, at which point the erector set–looking structure would be taken down piece by piece.