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Haygarth J (1800). Of the imagination, as a cause and as a cure of disorders of the body: exemplified by fictitious tractors, and epidemical convulsions. Bath: R. Crutwell.
Other Material
Metallic Tractors
Elisha Perkins (1741-1799),of Plainfield, Connecticut, received the first medical patent issued under the Constitution of the United States, in 1796, for this device.
The Perkins' tractors were medical quackery, of course, but Perkinism promised electrotherapeutic cures for pains in the head, face, teeth, breast, side, stomach, back, rheumatism and some gouts.
The son of Elisha Perkins, Benjamin Douglas Perkins (1774-1810), was the great promoter of the tractors, most notably in England.
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| Each galvanic metallic tractor is marked: PERKINS / PATENT / TRACTORS. |
A very rare set of c. 1790s antique Perkins tractors with original case |
 Metallic Tractors by James Gillray |
He also opened the market to the veterinary trade by authoring a pamphlet, The Family Remedy; or, Perkins's Patent Metallic Tractors, For the Relief of Topical Disease of the Human Body: And of Horses, 1800. For a decade the use of tractors was a rage...even George Washington is said to have bought a set. James Gillray, the English social critic and cartoonist, famously spoofed the use of the Perkins' invention, in 1801, which he labeled the Rod of Aesculapios [sic] (the Greek and Roman god of medicine, Aeskulapios or Aesculapius). For a history of the Perkins' metallic tractors, please click here. |
The editors are grateful to:
Alex Peck, Medical Antiques, for supplying images and information about Perkins’ Tractors.
Professor Michael Bracken and the Yale University Medical School Historical Library for supplying the cartoon of Metallic Tractors by James Gillray.