Medical essays, 1842-1882.

Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical essays, 1842-1882. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    believing tbe public to labor under a delusion, tliougbt it worth while to see whether the chariu would be broken by an open trial of its virtue, as compared with that of some less hallowed fornuda. It must be remembered that a peculiar value was attached to the Metallic Tractors, as made and patented by Mr. Per- kins. Dr. Haygarth, of Bath, performed various experiments upon patients afSieted with different com- plaiuts, — the patients supposing that the real five- guinea Tractors were employed. Strange to relate, he obtained equally wonderful effects with Tractors of lead and of wood; with nails, pieces of bone, slate pencil, and tobacco-pipe. Dr. Alderson employed sham Tractors made of wood, and jiroduced such ef- fects upon five patients that they returned solemn thanks in church for their cures. A single specimen of these cases may stand for all of them. Ann Hill had suffered for some months from pain in the right arm and shoulder. The Tractors (wooden ones') were applied, and in the space of five minutes she expressed herself relieved in the following apostrophe: “ Bless me! why, who could have thought it, that them little tilings could pull the pain from one. Well, to be sm’e, the longer one lives, the more one sees; ah, dear! ” These experiments did not result in the immediate extmction of Perldnism. Doubtless they were a gueat comfort to many obstinate unbelievers, and helped to settle some sceptical minds; but for the real Perldnis- tic enthusiasts, it may be questioned whether they would at that tune have changed their ophiion though one had risen from the dead to assure them that it was an error. It perished without violence, by an easy and natural process. Dike the famous toy of Mongolfier, it rose by means of heated aii’, — the fevered breath of
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