g the influence of
imagination in the cure of disease, hit upon an expedient to try the real
value of the tractors. Perkins's cures were too well established to be
doubted; and Dr. Haygarth, without gain-saying them, quietly, but in the
face of numerous witnesses, exposed the delusion under which people
laboured with respect to the curative medium. He suggested to Dr. Falconer
that they should make wooden tractors, paint them to resemble the steel
ones, and see if the very same effects would not be produced. Five
patients were chosen from the hospital in Bath, upon whom to operate. Four
of them suffered severely from chronic rheumatism in the ankle, knee,
wrist, and hip; and the fifth had been afflicted for several months with
the gout. On the day appointed for the experiments Dr. Haygarth and his
friends assembled at the hospital, and with much solemnity brought forth
the fictitious tractors. Four out of the five patients said their pains
were immediately relieved; and three of them said they were not only
relieved but very much benefited. One felt his knee warmer, and said he
could walk across the room. He tried and succeeded, although on the
previous day he had not been able to stir. The gouty man felt his
pains diminish rapidly, and was quite easy for nine hours, until he went
to bed, when the twitching began again. On the following day the real
tractors were applied to all the patients, when they described their
symptoms in nearly the same terms.

To make still more sure, the experiment was tried in the Bristol
infirmary, a few weeks afterwards, on a man who had a rheumatic affection
in the shoulder, so severe as to incapacitate him from lifting his hand
from his knee. The fictitious tractors were brought and applied to the
afflicted part, one of the physicians, to add solemnity to the scene,
drawing a stop-watch from his pocket to calculate the time exactly, while
another, with a pen in his hand, sat down to write the change of symptoms
from minute to minute as they occurred. In less than four minutes the man
felt so much relieved, that he lifted his hand several inches without any
pain in the shoulder!

An account of these matters was published by Dr. Haygarth, in a small
volume entitled, _Of the Imagination, as a Cause and Cure of Disorders,
exemplified by fictitious Tractors_. The exposure was a _coup de grace_ to
the system of Mr. Perkins. His friends and patrons, still unwilling to
confess that they had been