thus treated Perkinism; if the
facts in favor of both have a similar aspect; if the motives of their
originators and propagators may be presumed to have been similar; then
there is every reason to suppose that the existing folly will follow in
the footsteps of the past, and after displaying a given amount of cunning
and credulity in those deceiving and deceived, will drop from the public
view like a fruit which has ripened into spontaneous rottenness, and be
succeeded by the fresh bloom of some other delusion required by the same
excitable portion of the community.

Dr. Elisha Perkins was born at Norwich, Connecticut, in the year 1740.
He had practised his profession with a good local reputation for many
years, when he fell upon a course of experiments, as it is related, which
led to his great discovery. He conceived the idea that metallic
substances might have the effect of removing diseases, if applied in a
certain manner; a notion probably suggested by the then recent
experiments of Galvani, in which muscular contractions were found to be
produced by the contact of two metals with the living fibre. It was in
1796 that his discovery was promulgated in the shape of the Metallic
Tractors, two pieces of metal, one apparently iron and the other brass,
about three inches long, blunt at one end and pointed at the other.
These instruments were applied for the cure of different complaints, such
as rheumatism, local pains, inflammations, and even tumors, by drawing
them over the affected part very lightly for about twenty minutes. Dr.
Perkins took out a patent for his discovery, and travelled about the
country to diffuse the new practice. He soon found numerous advocates of
his discovery, many of them of high standing and influence. In the year
1798 the tractors had crossed the Atlantic, and were publicly employed in
the Royal Hospital at Copenhagen. About the same time the son of the
inventor, Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, carried them to London, where
they soon attracted attention. The Danish physicians published an
account of their cases, containing numerous instances of alleged success,
in a respectable octavo volume. In the year 1804 an establishment,
honored with the name of the Perkinean Institution, was founded in
London. The transactions of this institution were published in
pamphlets, the Perkinean Society had public dinners at the Crown and
Anchor, and a poet celebrated their medical triumph in strains like
these: