A Tragic Tale of Medical Fraud in the Golden Age of Quackery

Low Hanging Fruit is a tale about the dangers of unbridled narcissism. The protagonist, John Brinkley (born in North Carolina), was a charlatan whose medical degree was purchased from a diploma mill. He moved to Kansas to set up a clinic with his wife, Minnie. They learn of an unsubstantiated procedure to relieve male impotence by transplanting testicles from donor animals into humans. As a donor, they choose the most sexually aggressive animal that is readily available in Kansas: the billy goat. Brinkley dreams that this will be his ticket to fame and fortune, and  becomes a pioneer in the nascent world of AM radio in order to  promote his surgical practice. Low Hanging Fruit  follows his career, which, sadly, results in the death or incapacitation of countless gullible patients, leading to a barrage of lawsuits - totaling, by some estimates, well over 3 million dollars. Reduced to penury, Brinkley ultimately declares bankruptcy and dies penniless in 1942. However, he never admits wrongdoing, and remains fiercely narcissistic to the end.