"See, pointed metals, blest with power t' appease
The ruthless rage of merciless disease,
O'er the frail part a subtle fluid pour,
Drenched with invisible Galvanic shower,
Till the arthritic staff and crutch forego,
And leap exulting like the bounding roe!"

While all these things were going on, Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins was
calmly pocketing money, so that after some half a dozen years he left the
country with more than ten thousand pounds, which had been paid him by
the believers in Great Britain. But in spite of all this success, and
the number of those interested and committed in its behalf, Perkinism
soon began to decline, and in 1811 the Tractors are spoken of by an
intelligent writer as being almost forgotten. Such was the origin and
duration of this doctrine and practice, into the history of which we will
now look a little more narrowly.

Let us see, then, by whose agency this delusion was established and kept
up; whether it was principally by those who were accustomed to medical
pursuits, or those whose habits and modes of reasoning were different;
whether it was with the approbation of those learned bodies usually
supposed to take an interest in scientific discoveries, or only of
individuals whose claims to distinction were founded upon their position
in society, or political station, or literary eminence; whether the
judicious or excitable classes entered most deeply into it; whether, in
short, the scientific men of that time were deceived, or only intruded
upon, and shouted down for the moment by persons who had no particular
call to invade their precincts.

Not much, perhaps, was to be expected of the Medical Profession in the
way of encouragement. One Dr. Fuller, who wrote in England, himself a
Perkinist, thus expressed his opinion: "It must be an extraordinary
exertion of virtue and humanity for a medical man, whose livelihood
depends either on the sale of drugs, or on receiving a guinea for writing
a prescription, which must relate to those drugs, to say to his patient,
'You had better purchase a set of Tractors to keep in your family; they
will cure you without the expense of my attendance, or the danger of the
common medical practice.' For very obvious reasons medical men must
never be expected to recommend the use of Perkinism. The Tractors must
trust for their patronage to the enlightened and philanthropic out of the
profession, or to medical men retired from practice, and w