The efficacy of Perkins's patent metallic tractors, in topical diseases on the human body, and animals; exemplified by 250 cases ... To which is prefixed, a preliminary discourse, in which, the fallacious attempts of Dr. Haygarth, to detract from the merits of the tractors, are detected, and fully confuted / By Benjamin Douglas Perkins.

  • Perkins, Benjamin Douglas, 1774-1810.
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The efficacy of Perkins's patent metallic tractors, in topical diseases on the human body, and animals; exemplified by 250 cases ... To which is prefixed, a preliminary discourse, in which, the fallacious attempts of Dr. Haygarth, to detract from the merits of the tractors, are detected, and fully confuted / By Benjamin Douglas Perkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vi<flion in the mind of a fuperficial obferver, tliat the effeds, which 'foUcnv an application of the Trac- tors, are not produced by any property in the metals. Such cafes, w’ith that view, have been procured and induftrioufly circulated, not only through the me- dium of converfation, but in medical focieties, and even in public print. Thefe confift of trials of other fubAances than thofe of the Traders, on a certain When the yellow fever began to devaftate the large cities of America, he entertained the idea, that, amongft other remedies, fufficient trials had not been given to powerful antifeptics, and^ as he conceived it the duty of a medical man, to run every hazard where the leafl ray of hope beamed, he re- folved on vifiting the diforder. Accordingly in 1798, on receiving an invitation from the Board of Health at New London, where the fever was raging, he repaired thither, and thought he witnefled good ef- feds from a preparation of common vinegar, fatu- rated with marine fait, or muriate of foda, and di- luted with three-fourths its quantity of hot water and adminiflered warm ; a remedy, which he had previoufly ufed with great fuccefs in the dyfentery and fcarlatina anginofa, which had been veiy pre - valent and fatal in the New England States fom© years before [See an account of his pradlice in the Philofophical Magazine for December 1798, in a letter from Dr. Oliver.] But, as the fever had nearly fubfided on his arrival, he did not meet with cafes enough to autliorize any thing conclufive. The difeafe Hill remaining at Boiloii, a diflance of about an hundred mif'es, he inftantly went to that city, and notified the poor that he would attend them gratis There, however, from the latenefs of the fcafon, he had act an opportunity of putting any b z remedy