The success of the Tractors was attested not only by multitudes of wealthy and titled and learned men, but even by many of the medical profession; and selfish motives were unhesitatingly attributed to all physicians who were unbelievers. A physician, who was of sufficient respectability to be a president of a medical society, said of such unbelievers, that “like _infidels_ to the gospel, they admit of no mysteries, and refuse to believe what they do not readily comprehend.” Dr. Haygarth, an eminent physician of Bath, and some others, drew down a storm of public wrath upon their heads, because they asserted that a pair of wooden Tractors, painted so as to resemble the real metallic ones, had produced in their hands as marked effects as those which were purchased of Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, at five guineas a pair. So strong was the hold which ‘the new science of Perkinism,’ as it was called, had obtained upon the public favor, that the son of the inventor of the Tractors was spoken of as being most unjustly persecuted by a large proportion of the medical profession; and his name was often associated with those of Galileo and Harvey and Jenner, who, it was said, had suffered like persecution before him, from the stereotyped hatred of everything that is new. The efficacy of the Tractors was almost universally acknowledged; and the only difficulty seemed to be to account for their operation. Many ingenious electrical and galvanic theories were broached by learned men in England and in other countries. Perkinism, as it was called by acclamation, was hailed as one of the greatest of discoveries, and it was supposed to form a new era in medicine. The Tractors were sold in abundance at five guineas a pair. That the poor might be benefitted equally with the rich, the liberality of the British public was appealed to, and not in vain. A ‘Perkinean Institution’ was formed under the patronage of the first men in the kingdom. Lord Rivers was president, and there is a long list of titled vice presidents. A pamphlet, giving an account of this institution was published, of which I have a copy. The regulations were evidently based upon the idea that it was to be a permanent establishment. One of them prescribes that a donation of ten guineas constitute a governor for _life_. As many ladies were very enthusiastic patrons of the Tractors, as they are now of infinitesimal globules, one of the regulations was, that “ladies have liberty to vote by proxy, given to any governor of the institution, or by letter to the chairman.”