[Footnote 5: (Transcriber: This footnote is not numbered in the text but appears to refer to the preceding paragraph.): In one of Plautus' plays there is a curiously interesting expression that is recalled by this subject. The dramatist described one of his characters, Sosia, as thrown into a sleep by the manipulations of Mercury. These manipulations are described as tractim tangere—that is, to touch strokingly. It would remind one very much of Perkins' Tractors, and in this regard the fact that Mercury was to the Romans, besides being the messenger of the gods, the divinity of thieves, seems not without interest.]
Just what the tractors were composed of may be found in the description of them filed with an application for a patent in the Rolls Chapel Office in London. They were not simply two different metals, but a combination of many metals, with even a little of the precious metals in them, partly because [{49}] of the appeal that this would make to the multitude, as chloride of gold did to our own generation, but doubtless mainly because the claim of precious metals entering into the composition enabled the inventor to sell his tractors at a better price.
Dr. Holmes continues:
Perkins soon found numerous advocates of his discovery, many of them of high standing and influence. In 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 in a respectable octavo volume, containing numerous instances of alleged success. In 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 triumphs. [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6:
"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 the invisible galvanic shower,
Till the arthritic staff and crutch forego
And leap exulting like the bounding roe!">[
Miss Watterson [Footnote 7] tells how he attracted attention. Like all successful quacks, he had an inborn genius for advertising.
[Footnote 7: "Mesmer and Perkins's Tractors,"
International Clinics, Vol. III, Series 19. 1909.]
He lived in the house once occupied by John Hunter [how characteristic this is—the first quack we mentioned in this chapter, took up his work in Galen's front yard], and in 1804 the Perkinean Institute was opened, but by the end of 1802, 5,000 cases had already been treated. Lord Rivers was president. Sir William Barker, Vice-President [Prominent legislators, lawyers, bankers always lend their names.] Twenty-one physicians, nineteen surgeons, and the leading veterinaries succumbed to the influence of the magic tractors. One "eminent physician" who had had 30 guineas from a country patient and had done him no good was very angry when the sick man took to Perkinism.
"Why, I could have cured you in the same way with my old brick-bat or tobacco pipe, or even my fingers."
"Then why, sir," answered the patient in a stern voice (Perkins quotes this), "did you dishonorably pick my pocket when you had the means of restoring me to health?"
In some 176 pages young Perkins gives us the pick of 2,000 cases who had, of course, been foolish enough at first to put faith in the ordinary physician and his drugs.
In Bath, particularly, where aristocratic London went, as they do to-day, to repair the damage wrought by a season in town, the Tractor Cure was the talk of the place. But an enemy dwelt there, a Dr. Haygarth, an unbeliever. He, with a certain Dr. Falconer, fabricated a pair of false tractors. Five cases of gout and rheumatism were operated on by the conspirators, who discussed in a light tone the wonders of magnetism as they described circles, squares and triangles with the sham tractors. "We were almost afraid to look each other in the face lest an involuntary smile should remove the mask from our faces," says Haygarth, but the two assistant doctors, unaware of what was being done, were almost converted to Perkinism when they saw the five patients slowly mending under the treatment. One man experienced such burning pain that he begged to wait till the next day. [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: Compare the first effects of the Leyden Jar, related in the chapter on Pseudo-Science.]
So rapid, and so many were the hospital cures wrought by these two doctors, that patients crowded to them and they could hardly spare five minutes to eat. They amused themselves inventing other instruments made of common nails and sealing wax, and effected with them cures, while they sent a pair of false tractors [{50}] to Sir William Watson in London and Dr. Moncriffe in Bristol, who operated with them with wonderful results.