THE STORY OF CHANCELLOR TOBIAS

We must go to the pages of The Chicago Evening American of date August 18, 1920, for the story of Chancellor Tobias, written by Lloyd Lehrbas, of the American staff, with a brief introductory note, as follows:

(Here is one of the most remarkable news stories ever published in any Chicago newspaper. So startling is its detail that The Chicago Evening American in the interest of absolute accuracy submitted it to the person most concerned for his approval, so there can be no question concerning the facts, scientific or otherwise. Other men and women involved are not mentioned because the facts being established in the most important case, it is not considered necessary.)

Goat interstitial gland operations have been successfully performed on J. J. Tobias, Chancellor of the Chicago Law School, and thirty-five other Chicago men and women by Dr. J. R. Brinkley, of Milford, Kansas, who has been in Chicago for the past six weeks, performing the operations every day.

An alderman, a well-known political figure, living on the Gold Coast, a judge, a prominent real estate man, a newspaper man, three women, one of whom is well known on the North Shore, and other Chicagoans, have found the lost Fountain of Youth as a result of the miracle-surgeon’s transplanting the revivifying interstitial glands of a goat into their human bodies.

The story of Dr. Brinkley’s knife magic is the story of a surgeon’s study and experimenting for nine years, ending with the successful accomplishment of the gland operation performed on thirty-six Chicagoans, who are alive and healthy today.

The complete story, with laboratory data, the name of one of the prominent patients, and an authorized interview with Dr. Brinkley is told for the first time in The Evening American today.

Successful on Women. Proof that the operation has been successful on women as well as men makes the story of increased interest. Until now it has been the general conception that the operation was successful on men only. A Chicago woman is now supremely happy because, after years of hoping, the operation has made it possible for her to become a mother.

Five months ago, Chancellor Tobias was, in his own words, played out. His years of teaching in the Chicago Law School had reduced his vitality.

Chancellor Tobias went to Dr. Brinkley’s hospital and submitted to the operation in order to relieve arterial congestion in the brain, caused by two attacks of influenza, a year apart. So serious had become his condition and so severe the attacks of vertigo and high blood pressure, that his attending physician informed him he was in imminent danger of death. The planting of the interstitial glands in Chancellor Tobias’ body relieved the congestion and fully eliminated the cause.

Purged of All Ills. Today he has dropped the years from his shoulders, purged his body and brain of ills, and stands revivified.

“I feel like a youth again,” the aged chancellor said today. “I’m a new man.”

The stories of the other Chicagoans who have been benefited by the operation read like fiction. They were ill, they were old, they apparently were beyond the skill of the surgeon’s knife, or spiritual hope. Now from their own lips come pæans of glorification for restored vitality and youth, all due to the humble goat and the surgical skill of a country surgeon.

Tobias’ Own Story. Today I called at the law school in the Monadnock Building to see Chancellor Tobias and get the story from his own lips. The reports seemed too rosy. The facts seemed overstated. The results appeared to me unduly magnified. But here was a prominent lawyer who had the operation performed. Here was assurance there would be no buncombe from him.

An alert, peppy, gray-haired man sprang up to greet me, his eyes, the eyes of youth, his step firm and sprightly, his handclasp steady and strong. And yet he was 71 years old!

“Do you really feel younger?”

Twenty-five Years Younger. Chancellor Tobias threw out his chest, squared his shoulders, and smiled. “I feel twenty-five years younger. I’m a new man, strong, and good for twenty years of work,” he replied. “I was ill, old, and played out, but the operation has completely revivified me.”

“How does it feel to have been old, and then become young again?”

“Glorious!”

Was “Played Out." And here is Chancellor Tobias’ story of the fountain of youth.

“After teaching for twenty-five years in the Chicago Law School,” he said. “I was played out. I suffered intense headaches. My eyesight began failing. There was a constant ringing in my ears. Dizziness came with increasing regularity. Mentally and physically I was an old man. Then I heard of Dr. Brinkley.”

Chancellor Tobias went to Milford, Kansas, as a last hope in March of this year.

On March 26 Dr. Brinkley selected a two months’ old goat and removed the interstitial glands. They were placed in a solution at body heat and taken to the operating room. Dr. Tobias was given an anesthetic. Dr. Brinkley leaned over the operating table, made a quick, accurate incision, planted the goat gland, and fifteen minutes later the operation was over.

Eyesight Improves. “Four days after the operation,” the Chancellor continued, “the headaches had disappeared, and my eyesight was greatly improved. And seven days afterwards, I left the hospital a new man.”

One month after the operation Chancellor Tobias wrote to Dr. Brinkley: “I really feel twenty years younger. My health has improved wonderfully. I have regained my lost vigor and vitality. I’m a recreated youth.”

And today even Chancellor Tobias’ fellow faculty members, many of them nationally famous attorneys, admit that Dr. Tobias has improved 100 per cent.

"Almost Unbelievable." “I hesitate to speak of this,” Chancellor Tobias said. “It is so wonderful it is almost unbelievable. The public cannot appreciate what the operation means. There has been some levity over the news of the gland operations, but it should be treated with the greatest respect and admiration. The operation has been a success on me so I am in a position to speak authoritatively. It is one of the greatest things of the century.”

Among the other thirty-five patients who have been successfully operated on are many well-known to thousands of people in Chicago. Here are some typical Chicago cases omitting names:

Policeman , aged 60, suffering from chronic diabetes and a general breakdown, which was about to compel his retirement from the force. Operated on August 9. Left the hospital yesterday feeling like “a new man.”

Alderman , aged 55, chronic asthma sufferer. Operated on April 26. Asthma had disappeared by the time he left the hospital. Declared he felt years younger and is now completely revivified.

Mr. G , newspaperman, aged 39. Suffered from complete nervous breakdown from overwork. Operated on April 25. Resumed work almost immediately, full of pep, and today is the picture of health.

Judge , aged 58. Premature old age from hardening of the arteries. Operated on April 28. Because of his wonderful improvement in health has changed his mind about retiring from the bench.

Operation Painless. “Ignorance about the gland transplanting is almost universal,” I told Dr. Brinkley. “I know nothing of it. Tell me how it is done, why you use goat-glands, all the whys and wherefores, so the readers of The American will have some authentic information. Is the operation painful?”

“No,” Dr. Brinkley replied. “It is a simple incision with very little actual pain. In practically all cases a local anesthetic is used. A general anesthetic is used only in exceptional cases.”

“How long does the operation take?”

“Fifteen to twenty minutes. It is as simple as grafting new shoots on a fruit tree. No part of the human gland is removed. The goat-gland is simply planted to take the place of the old gland.”

“And the hospital confinement?”

“One week, to rest the patient and allow the gland to begin functioning without undue exertion.”

“Any danger?”

“None whatever. It’s like grafting on a piece of skin. There is absolutely no danger.”

Eliminates Disorders. Lost youth is regained, according to Dr. Brinkley, as a result of the revivifying fluid secreted by the transplanted gland, leading to the elimination of organic disorders that are hastening old age.

Dr. Brinkley explained in detail:

“I began my experiments nine years ago, and began using goat-glands three years ago in the interstitial gland operation because the goat-glands resemble to a large degree the human glands in their histological make-up. The interstitial glands and the blood, of a goat, are a very close approach in their constituents to those of a human being.

“Old people are simply broken down. The goat-gland secretes the fluid that builds up the brokendown parts of the human body. Eyesight improves 50 per cent. If a man is underweight he will gain to normal, and if he is overweight he will reduce to normal, showing that the goat glands actually function.”

Chronic Diseases Cured. “Chronic skin diseases are cleared up. Stomach trouble disappears under the new gland’s guardianship of the body. I have the laboratory data, the scientific records, and the actual revivified patients to prove it. The only unsuccessful cases are certain people whose blood lacks necessary essentials, and they are few.”

Dr. Brinkley gives Dr. G. Frank Lydston of Chicago credit for performing the first gland transplanting operations.

Lydston Is Pioneer. “Dr. Lydston is the pioneer,” Dr. Brinkley said. “He was the first man to transplant glands from a human to a human. I have never transplanted anthropoid ape glands, as Dr. Voronoff of Paris, and only in three cases human glands, as Dr. Lydston, and I was not pleased with the results in those three cases. I was the first to transplant goat glands. Dr. Serge Voronoff has performed the operation on only two human beings. He failed to give Dr. Lydston credit, although it is obvious he followed Dr. Lydston’s book.”

This completes Mr. Lehrbas’ interview. In the same paper, The Chicago Evening American, a month later, date of September 15, appeared the following account of another visit to Chancellor Tobias, written by Edward M. Thierry:

J. J. Tobias, chancellor of the Chicago Law School, told me it was none of my business how old he is. He’s got a goat-gland sewed into his innards and I was trying to get some personal Ponce de Leon statistics.

“I’m over 50,” Tobias conceded. “How much I won’t say. But I will say my clock has been turned back from ten to twenty years! Just look at me!”

He jumped out of his chair er friskily. That’s the only expressive word. Tobias is little, thin and wiry. His face wrinkles up and his teeth flash when he smiles. He has grey hair and talks with quick jerks as if his energy is running a race with his tongue.

“I’m rejuvenated,” Tobias said. “Time will tell whether my goat-gland will make me live longer. I had that operation on last March 26, and I’m still living. I’m no decrepit old man, either.”

Tobias was operated on by Dr. J. R. Brinkley, who has caused a furor in medical circles through his many successful goat-gland operations.

Critics of Dr. Brinkley make Tobias tired. Get his goat, so to speak. He says he knows what he’s talking about, for he was formerly lecturer in a Chicago medical college.

“Seventy-five years ago my father had a little German machine,” Tobias said, “called the ‘life waker.’ It was a disk as big as a dollar with a lot of needles in it. You jabbed it into the small of the back and waked life that way. We can laugh at that archaic system, for it was crude. Now we’re more scientific. Witness the transplantation of goat-glands.”

Tobias said he went to see Dr. Brinkley at Milford, Kansas, to investigate his goat-gland discovery because of long suffering from congestion of the brain arteries. Doctors had told him he was in danger of death because of severe attacks of vertigo and a high blood pressure.

“The operation,” Tobias said, “occupied about 20 minutes. Within three hours after the operation the goat-gland began to function, the congestion was relieved, and within three days the cause was eliminated.

“I am a new man physically, with new mental vigor, and a new power of sustained effort. I can distinctly sense the function of a new gland in my body.”

It must have functioned muscularly, for when I left Tobias gave me a knuckle-crushing grip which made it necessary to write this story with my left hand.

These newspaper articles are printed here without change, in spite of evident repetitions, because of their evidential value. It is an old trick of the public press in the United States, and probably in Europe also, to start a sensation with a blazing front page story, and in the course of a few weeks follow it with a complete and sarcastic expose of the whole matter as a baseless fabrication, piling facts on facts to show that the first story was an ingenious piece of deception got up by the subject with the purpose of making capital out of the credulity of the public. There are no better detectives in the world than newspaper men. They work for the love of it. An expose is dearer to the detective-instinct in them than a laudatory article, and they leave no stone unturned to get at the facts. When, therefore, after the lapse of months, the newspapers of the United States repeat and confirm their first stories about Dr. Brinkley’s work it means something to one who knows their methods of working. Money cannot buy this sort of publicity. There must be facts, and facts of value, and facts verified again and again, before stories of this kind appear and reappear in the great organs of publicity in all the big cities of the United States. How far they carry, and how wide-reaching is the interest, will be understood by the statement that the announcement of Dr. Brinkley’s work, printed first in American newspapers, and copied in the English papers, has brought him urgent requests to visit South Africa, Australia, Sweden, Scotland, and many other countries. From England in particular come requests from women that he do not fail to make a journey to some part of Europe in the summer of 1921, in order that they may take the operation with a view to bearing children. This he has arranged to do about June of this year, expecting to find in England a climate during the months of June, July and August, which will not be too hot to prevent him from transplanting the goat-glands. He does not operate at his hospital in Kansas during June, July and August, on account of the heat, having found that when the outdoor temperature is high the glands will certainly slough. The high temperature without seems to create a high temperature for the patient, and the result is a wasted pair of good goat glands, with loss of time and money to all concerned. In England in the summer it should be necessary to wait a few days only for right climatic conditions to present themselves, and be sure that they will do so. There are the further matters of a supply of goats of the right Toggenburg breed, a place to keep them, in close proximity to the operating hospital, and the hospital itself, to be dealt with suitably in the shortest possible space of time after arrival. The supply of goats can probably be best procured direct from Switzerland through some London importer, and the other matters will no doubt fall easily into place. The goats must not come from a high altitude, or their glands will not contain a right amount of iodine. This is curiously important. Dr. Brinkley cannot use goats from Colorado for that reason. If the doctor’s reception in England is cordial he will probably make his visit there an annual summer affair of three months’ duration for some years to come, which would give him an opportunity of keeping in continued touch with his English and European patients. The English are a practical people, and less sensitive than we to, or more careless of, ridicule, and they are likely to grasp the importance of Dr. Brinkley’s work on the instant of his arrival, compelling a long visit.