Footnote #: 227
Refers to Dialogue: “Sexual weakness”
Time: 00:44:49
Truth Value: Chronological Distortion
Keywords: Advertising & PR
This speech by Brinkley, in which he announces his wonderful new breakthrough, is an amalgamation of many different moments. We’re condensing a lot of things together here for flow and simplification.
He stopped offering the goat gland surgery in 1933 (not in 1937 as suggested here), and offered instead “glandular preparations” or “commercial preparations” (whatever that means) instead. But we’re making it seem as if these “preparations” were known as Formula 1020, which they weren’t; Formula 1020 was a different treatment. Basically, Formula 1020 was colored water given to all post-operative patients and was meant to increase a patient’s white blood cell count. Really, it was just one of many quack remedies sold by Brinkley; we only bring up Formula 1020 because it becomes important in the libel trial later.
Also, notice that now all of the sudden the goat glands aren’t just for impotence? We’re finally sharing the information that the goat gland surgery was acually a miracle cure-all good for almost anything that ails you! A good sample of the conditions Brinkley claimed to cure with goat glands can be found in Shadows and Sunshine, John R. Brinkley, published by John R. Brinkley, Milford Kansas, 1923 (or later in the film, at the end of the first day of the libel trial).