Chapter III

THE PRACTICE. WOMEN

At Dr. Brinkley’s hospital, a beautifully appointed private residence, it is a comfort to women patients to have the doctor’s wife, herself a competent surgeon if necessary, at hand during the actual operation. Mrs. Brinkley administers the local anesthetic, or the general anesthetic, if that is called for, as it sometimes is. While the bulk of the operations performed on both men and women are gland-transplantations, a diseased condition of tubes and ovaries has sometimes made a laporotomy necessary, and many major operations have been successfully performed in the white-enameled operating room. At such times a woman clings to the presence of a woman, and Mrs. Brinkley’s kind and pleasant manner is usually sufficient to banish all nervousness from the woman patient.

In ordinary cases of gland-transplantation into women, where the patient is in good physical condition, with no disease of the organs, the operation is as simple as in the case of the man. The speculum discloses the condition of the vagina, and the insertion of the new ovary is into the mucous membrane of the vagina, leaving the goat-ovary about four inches distant from the woman’s. The only incision made is a small one, about one inch long, painless under local anesthetic, the purpose of the

Dr. Brinkley by no means asserts that the woman whose ovaries have been removed by surgical operation will grow two new ovaries after the transplantation has been made, but he cites the case of a woman whose ovaries had ought to show an alternation of good and bad days, with the good days gradually drawing ahead and becoming more frequent and more marked. I look for her to recover entirely in a year’s time, but she will always retain her sensitiveness and a certain amount of hysteria, so that things that would not bother you or me will hurt her grievously. You must be prepared to expect this to happen. But I see no reason at all why she should not in the near future become a happy wife and mother.” The blessings of this good mother were a reward in themselves, and were so received by the doctor and his wife. When such results as this are obtained it becomes very difficult to draw a line and say, “The goat-glands will do no good here.” Physicians of the best standing had said to this poor mother before she took her daughter to Kansas, “So you’re determined to try the goat-glands? You are wasting your time and money. Brinkley is nothing but a fake. If there were any help for your daughter we could cure her. We can do nothing. There is no help for her!” This was repeated to the writer by the mother, and he vouches for its truth. Is it not evident that a better understanding of the goat-gland operation is highly desirable among physicians and surgeons today?

Quite a frequent style of inquiry from women to the doctor runs like this: “I am in good health, and in every way normal; age 35. I want to remain as I am, and grow no older in appearance than I am today. Do you think