Perkins soon found numerous advocates of his discovery, many of them of high standing and influence. In 1798 the tractors had crossed the Atlantic, and were publicly employed in the Royal Hospital at Copenhagen. About the same time the son of the inventor, Mr. Benjamin Douglass Perkins, carried them to London where they soon attracted attention. The Danish physicians published an account of their cases in a respectable octavo volume, containing numerous instances of alleged success. In 1804 an establishment, honored with the name of the Perkinean Institution, was founded in London. The transactions of this institution were published in pamphlets, the Perkinean Society had public dinners at the Crown and Anchor, and a poet celebrated their medical triumphs. [Footnote 6] [Footnote 6: "See pointed metals, blest with power t' appease The ruthless rage of merciless disease, O'er the frail part a subtle fluid pour, Drenched with the invisible galvanic shower, Till the arthritic staff and crutch forego And leap exulting like the bounding roe!"] Miss Watterson [Footnote 7] tells how he attracted attention. Like all successful quacks, he had an inborn genius for advertising. [Footnote 7: "Mesmer and Perkins's Tractors," _International Clinics_, Vol. III, Series 19. 1909.] He lived in the house once occupied by John Hunter [how characteristic this is--the first quack we mentioned in this chapter, took up his work in Galen's front yard], and in 1804 the Perkinean Institute was opened, but by the end of 1802, 5,000 cases had already been treated. Lord Rivers was president. Sir William Barker, Vice-President [Prominent legislators, lawyers, bankers always lend their names.] Twenty-one physicians, nineteen surgeons, and the leading veterinaries succumbed to the influence of the magic tractors. One "eminent physician" who had had 30 guineas from a country patient and had done him no good was very angry when the sick man took to Perkinism. "Why, I could have cured you in the same way with my old brick-bat or tobacco pipe, or even my fingers." "Then why, sir," answered the patient in a stern voice (Perkins quotes this), "did you dishonorably pick my pocket when you had the means of restoring me to health?" In some 176 pages young Perkins gives us the pick of 2,000 cases who had, of course, been foolish enough at first to put faith in the ordinary physician and his drugs.