This curious humbug is described by Dr. O. W. Holmes in ‘Currents and Counter-Currents, pp. 73–101 (1861). The date of the address is 1842.
1796. Perkins’s “Metallic Tractors” are noticed in a half-column letter: The Aurora, Phila., March 29.
1797. He advertises in the Gazette of the U.S., March 15, April 7.
1797. Prof. Josiah Meigs of Yale College commends the Tractors.—Mass. Spy, Nov. 1.
1798. His father’s discovery, which may with propriety be termed Perkinism, or (as we have taken the liberty to denominate it) “Perkinean Electricity.”—Langworthy, ‘A View of the Perkinean Electricity,’ p. 41, App. (N.E.D.)
1801. “Dr. Perkins’s patent points” alluded to: ‘Spirit of the Farmer’s Museum,’ p. 278.
1803. “Terrible Tractoration: a Poetical Petition against Galvanizing, Trumpery, and the Perkinistic Institution.” Title of a pamphlet by Fessenden. (N.E.D.)
1803. The Gentleman’s Magazine for Sept., pp. 856–7, contains an address delivered in July before the Perkinean Society:
| “See Pointed Metals, blest with power t’appease | |
| The ruthless rage of merciless Disease, | |
| O’er the frail part a subtil fluid pour, | |
| Drench’d with invisible Galvanic show’r, | |
| Till the arthritick staff and ‘crutch forego, | |
| And leap exulting like the bounding roe!’” |
1804. There are Perkins’ Tractors. They will cure every thing. And if mankind would only come into the practice of using them, they need not be detained from their daily occupations, by the most acute disease, longer than to partake of an ordinary meal. [This is satirically written.]—The Balance, Jan. 10, p. 9/2.
