Tag: illinois

The Promise of a Testicle

The background of this antique, sepia-toned photograph shows the rainy, puddled area below a dark steel Chicago viaduct. A mobster in a trench coat and fedora who is holding a newspaper speaks with a bespectacled doctor in a long white lab coat who is carrying a leather medical bag. The older white men's eyes are locked, their serious expressions suggesting that a shady business transaction hangs in the balance. An unconscious younger white man dressed in modest clothing lies passed-out in the doorway of a nearby brick building. A boxy early automobile with skinny tires waits on the pocked cobblestone beneath the viaduct. The fabricated historical scene lends dark, dramatic flair to our unusual true crime story about a very brief rash of stolen testicles that terrified Chicagoans in the so-called gland larceny spate from 1922-1923. This alt text is dedicated to my new friend Brooke!

An unusual true crime story about the quick rise and fall of endocrinology’s most macabre macho moment: the 1923 Chicago Gland Larceny.

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