in behalf of the latter, and treated with contempt or opposed by the same kind of persons who thus treated Perkinism; if the facts in favor of both have a similar aspect; if the motives of their originators and propagators may be presumed to have been similar; then there is every reason to suppose that the existing folly will follow in the footsteps of the past, and after displaying a given amount of cunning and credulity in those deceiving and deceived, will drop from the public view like a fruit which has ripened into spontaneous rottenness, and be succeeded by the fresh bloom of some other delusion required by the same excitable portion of the community.

Dr. Elisha Perkins was born at Norwich, Connecticut, in the year 1740.  He had practised his profession with a good local reputation for many years, when he fell upon a course of experiments, as it is related, which led to his great discovery.  He conceived the idea that metallic substances might have the effect of removing diseases, if applied in a certain manner; a notion probably suggested by the then recent experiments of Galvani, in which muscular contractions were found to be produced by the contact of two metals with the living fibre.  It was in 1796 that his discovery was promulgated in the shape of the Metallic Tractors, two pieces of metal, one apparently iron and the other brass, about three inches long, blunt at one end and pointed at the other.  These instruments were applied for the cure of different complaints, such as rheumatism, local pains, inflammations, and even tumors, by drawing them over the affected part very lightly for about twenty minutes.  Dr. Perkins took out a patent for his discovery, and travelled about the country to diffuse the new practice.  He soon found numerous advocates of his discovery, many of them of high standing and influence.  In the year 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, containing numerous instances of alleged success, in a respectable octavo volume.  In the year 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 triumph in strains like these: 

  “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!”