Just the quacks
A compilation of the conspiracy theorists and medical quacks from the past
Hi horny readers! Thank you so, so much for reading the ADULT SEX ED newsletter.
New here? Adult Sex Ed comedically challenges why we think what we think about sex. I’m Dani Faith Leonard, a filmmaker, comedy writer, and performer. In 2018, I started a comedy show called Adult Sex Ed and launched this newsletter in 2023. Each week, I take a fun deep dive into a topic that I’ve been researching. Ready to plug the holes in your education? Okay, let’s go!
It’s 2025 and the Measles are making a comeback. In honor of our declining medical state, here are some of my favorite medical quacks that we’ve covered before. They impacted sexual health, spread conspiracies, and were all-American.
JOHN HARVEY KELLOGG
Let’s start with John Harvey Kellogg’s extreme anti-masturbation methods, which included genital mutilation and tying children’s hands to the bedposts. He once said about chronic masturbators that “such a victim literally dies by his own hand.” Ahhhh, but what a way to go! He also shot gallons of yogurt up his own ass every week, so maybe that’s how he derived pleasure.
Kellogg is perhaps best known for inventing Corn flakes with his brother with the goal of stopping people from cracking one off at the breakfast table, or at any other time of the day. Masturbation wasn’t the only focus at the Sanitarium he ran. He was obsessed with exercise and clean colons, too. He invented machines for exercise, like the mechanical horse, and also a chair that shook patients so violently that they involuntarily defecated. He encouraged his patients to get multiple enemas a day — and invented his own enema machine for group use. Group use??!!!
A man born in 1852 could expect to live approximately 40.4 years, but he lived to age 91, so I guess the joke’s on us. Find out more about Kellogg, his methods and their impact here:
LYDIA E. PINKHAM
Kellogg wasn’t the original problematic American guru. Please meet Lydia E. Pinkham, the original snake-oil saleswoman, who revolutionized marketing and set the stage for the likes of GOOP and Dr.Oz. In the 1800s, the reputation of the medical profession was very low. Like many women of her time, Pinkham brewed herbal potions for ailments.
So, what’s in Lydia’s magic compound: The original recipe, created by Pinkham on her home kitchen stove, contained black cohosh, life root, unicorn root, pleurisy root, and fenugreek seed. The unicorn root allegedly gave energy to the uterus, like Jason Momoa. The pleurisy root allegedly helped cure a prolapsed uterus, which I’m sure is completely legit. Black cohosh is still used today to treat symptoms of menopause. Most importantly, her elixir contained 20% drinking alcohol, which solves literally anything.
Mass marketed from 1876 on, Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best known patent medicines of the 19th century. Sure, the medicine was special. But what was really extraordinary about Lydia E. Pinkham was her flair for marketing. Through pamphlets and ads, Lydia would claim that her feminine compound cured headaches, constipation, menopause, insomnia, depression, cancer, tumors, women's diseases, flatulence, menstruation, and fertility. She was the first woman to put her face on an advertisement and also invented the user testimonial. Find out more about her contributions here:
THE SNAKE-OIL SALESWOMAN BEFORE GOOP
1920S DOCTORS WHO COMMITTED ‘GLAND LARCENY’
In the 1920s, there was a concept floating around that men may be able to rejuvenate their health by getting a new set of balls. Or by adding another set of balls to the set they already had. A doctor named John Brinkley became known as the "goat-gland doctor" after he implanted goat testicles into male patients. At first, he claimed that it cured impotence, but later on, he would claim that it would cure a variety of ailments, from dementia to flatulence (as if those were anywhere close to each other in severity).
Another doctor decided to experiment on himself instead. Chicago urologist Frank Lydston sewed a cadaver’s nuts into his own scrotum all the way back in 1914. Then, he got one-upped by a prison doctor who had access to lots of balls. Over the course of twenty years, Leo Stanley would perform over 10,000 testicular implants within the walls of San Quentin State Prison. Sterilizing prisoners in the process is terrible, but the same thing would start happening to men on the streets of Chicago.
In 1922, men were getting kidnapped in Chicago, drugged with chloroform, and waking up with empty scrota. According to some medical historians, this actually marks the beginning of modern organ trafficking, which most people associate with kidneys, not danglies. Newspapers went wild, calling it “Gland Larceny.” Find more about this crazy time in history here:
A couple of years ago, Tucker Carlson promoted testicle tanning in a documentary that featured RFK Jr. about “The Death of Men.” The problematic health guru is a trope that has been around since the beginning of time and isn’t going anywhere.
Have a lovely week and we’ll be back with an all new topic next Wednesday.
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