A.D. 1798.—Perkins (Benjamin D.), is given an English patent for a process enabling him to cure aches, pains and diseases in the human body by drawing electrified metals over the parts affected. His metallic tractors, originally introduced from America and consisting of an alloy of different metals, awakened much curiosity both in England and on the Continent, and were successfully used by Dr. Haygarth and others, as related in the article “Somnambulism,” of the “Encyclopædia Britannica.”
In the Repert. II. ii. 179, it is said that one of the tractors was made of zinc, copper and gold, and the other of iron, platina and silver. M. V. Burq, in his “Métallo-thérapie,” makes a review of the successful cures of nervous complaints effected by metallic applications.
References.—Jour. de Phys., Vol. XLIX. p. 232; Mr. Langworthy, “View of the Perkinian Electricity,” 1798; T. G. Fessenden, “Poetical petition against ... the Perkinistic Institution ...” London, 1803; B. D. Perkins, “The Influence of Metallic Tractors on the Human Body ...” London, 1798–1799; “Bibl. Britan.,” Vol. XXI, 1802, pp. 49–89; “Recherches sur le Perkinisme,” etc. (“Annales de la Soc. de Méd. de Montpellier,” Vol. XXIX. p. 274); “Sur les tracteurs de Perkins” (“Mém. des Soc. Savantes et Lit.,” Vol. II. p. 237); P. Sue, aîné, “Hist. du Galv.,” IV. p. 286 and “Hist du Perkinisme,” Paris, 1805; J. D. Reuss, “De re electrica,” Vol. XII. p. 20; J. Krziwaneck, “De electricitate ...” Prag., 1839.
A.D. 1798.—In a long letter written to Thomas Jefferson, President of the American Philosophical Society, and read before the latter body on the 4th of May 1798, the Rev. James Madison, then President of William and Mary College, details several experiments made by him to ascertain the effect of a magnet upon the Torricellian vacuum, and to explain the phenomena exhibited by magnets in proximity to iron filings.
He says: “Many ingenious men have supposed that the arrangement of the filings clearly indicated the passage of a magnetic fluid or effluvia in curved lines from one pole to another of a different denomination,” but that the experiments which he relates prove the attractive force of the magnets, at either pole, to be the real cause of the phenomena which the filings exhibit, and that the action of the magnet upon the filings, when they approach within a certain distance, renders them magnetic. In every magnet, says he, there is at least one line, called the equator, from which, in the direction of both poles, the attractive power increases so that the filings will “incline toward them, forming angles which appear to be such as the resolution of two forces, one lateral and the other polar, would necessarily produce.”
Thomas Jefferson, above named, succeeded Benjamin Franklin as United States Minister Plenipotentiary to Paris, 1784–1789, became Vice-President of the United States in 1796, and was sworn in as the successor of John Adams to the Presidency on the 4th of March 1801. The Rev. James Madison, D.D., second cousin of the fourth President of the United States bearing the same name, became President of William and Mary College in 1777, and was consecrated first Bishop of Virginia by the Archbishop of Canterbury in Lambeth Palace, Sept. 19, 1790.
References.—“Transactions of the Am. Phil. Soc.,” Vol. IV for 1799, O.S. No. 39, pp. 323–328.
A.D. 1798.—Monge (Gaspar), Comte de Peluse, a very able French scientist, called “the inventor of descriptive geometry,” and from whom, it is said, that science received greater accessions than had before been given it since the days of Euclid and Archimedes, erects a telegraph upon the “Palais des Tuileries” in Paris. Of this, however, no reliable details are on record.
He also makes many experiments on the effects of optics and electricity, and, likewise, many useful observations on the production of water by inflammable air, independently of those carried on by Lord Cavendish.
References.—Biography in Charles Dupin’s “Essai Historique,” etc., and in “English Cycl.,” Vol. IV. pp. 296, 297; Memoir at p. 175 of Vol. LV, Phil. Mag. for 1820; G. Monge, “Sur l’effet des étincelles ...” Paris, 1786, and “Précis des leçons,” Paris, 1805; Sci. Am. Supp., No. 621, p. 9916, and the note at foot of p. 701 of “Fifth Dissert.” eighth ed. of “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Vol. I; as well as “Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences,” 1786.