Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems

by Thomas Green Fessenden

“The comparison which the more modern philosophers, and particularly my illustrious friend Monge, have established between caloric and light, so as to consider these two effects as the product of modifications of the same body, is entitled to much more attention. It is established on a great number of experiments; it naturally and simply explains most of the phenomena; and it agrees with the sublime economy of nature, which multiplies effects much more than the bodies which produce them.

“Fire,” he continues, “is disengaged, and shows itself in the form of heat, when it is gently and slowly driven out of bodies into the composition of which it entered; but it shines in the form of light when it flies out of compounds, in a very compressed state, by a swift motion.

“According to this ingenious hypothesis, caloric may become light, and light on the other hand may become caloric. For this purpose it is only necessary that the first should assume more rapidity in its motion, and the second undergo a diminution of velocity.” Nicholsons’ Fourcroy, vol. i. p. 57.

Our next step in this our wonderful process is to prove, that light, which is the same as heat, may also be identified with electricity.

Here I shall produce the authority of a writer in the Encyclopædia Britannica, who appears to be a very sound philosopher. Under the title Electricity, article 83, you will find that gunpowder has been fired by the electric blast; from which the writer reasons as follows.

“As it therefore appears, that the electric fluid, when it moves through bodies either with great rapidity or in very great quantity will set them on fire, it seems scarce disputable, that this fluid is the same with the element of fire. This being once admitted, the source from whence the electric fluid is derived into the earth and atmosphere must be exceedingly evident, being no other than the sun or source of light itself.” The writer then proceeds to show, that an iron wire has been melted by the discharge of a battery of electricity, and furnishes proofs which must convince the most incredulous, of the correctness of his theory.

Thus far we have proceeded triumphantly in making it abundantly evident that light, heat, and electricity are the same in substance; so that if your worships will permeate this subject with due retention and some small share of true philosophical perspicacity, you will find that heat and electricity are the dregs or sediment of light, and by digesting Dr Black’s theory of latent heat, you will find that the matter of heat, light, and electricity exists in very vast abundance in all bodies and substances.

We next will prove that Galvanism is a modification of electricity. Here we will advert to the theory of Galvani and Aldini, as stated by C. H. Wilkinson, lecturer on Galvanism in Soho square, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, &c. &c. This gentleman informs us, that “the animal body is a description of Leyden phial, or magic battery, in one part of which there is an excess of electricity, and in the other a deficiency. The conducting body communicates the fluid of the part where it is abundant to the part where it is defective; and in this passage of the electricity, the muscular contractions are obtained in the same way as the discharges are produced by the Leyden phial or magic batteries. As the conducting bodies in electricity are the sole agents in the discharge of the Leyden phial, so the same bodies alone serve likewise to excite muscular contractions.” Wilkinson’s Elements of Galvanism, p. 82.

We next will prove that Perkins’s points are the proper conductors of animal electricity. From a specification which Mr Perkins published in the Repertory of Arts, it would seem that zinc is the principal ingredient in the tractors.

“Zinc,” says Fourcroy, “is a conductor of electricity like all other metals, and nothing particular has hitherto been discovered in it with respect to this property; however, the powerful manner in which it effects the sensibility of the human body in Galvanic experiments seems to give it herein a sort of prerogative or pre-eminence over other metallic substances. If we place a plate of zinc under the tongue, and cover the upper surface of this organ with another metal, and especially a piece of gold or silver, and then incline the extremity of this last, so as to approach it to the plate of zinc, at the moment when the two metals come into contact with each other, the person who performs the experiments feels a very perceptible pricking sensation, heat, irritation, and a sort of acerb taste in the tongue, almost always accompanied with a momentous glare, or luminous circle, which suddenly appears before his eyes. No metal produces this singular effect with such force as zinc is observed to do.”