The truth is, that, at the end of the eighteenth century, Galvani and Volta, Sir Joseph Banks, in connection with the Royal Society, and all the scientific men of the day, were deeply interested in solving the mysteries of electricity; and, as nobody, as yet, knew much about it, the public were liable to be gulled by any empiric, and Benjamin Douglas Perkins was the very man to do it. He, and others, wrote several pamphlets on “The Influence of Metallic Tractors on the Human Body, in removing various Inflammatory Diseases,” and such like, and opened a _Perkinean Institution_ in London. He must have been fairly successful, for his advertisements lasted some years. His published cures were miraculous: “A Lady was afflicted with an Erysipelas in her face.... In a few minutes she cheerfully acknowledged that she was quite well.” “A man aged 37 had, for several years, been subject to the Gout. I found him in bed, and very much distressed with the disease in one of his feet. After I had operated upon it with the Tractors he said the pain was entirely gone.” “A Lady burned her hand. I, happily, called at the house immediately after the accident, and applied the Tractors. In about ten minutes, the inflammation disappeared, the vesication was prevented, and she said the pain was gone.” The price of these “blessings to men” was five guineas a set; and he explains them in the specification of the patent granted him on the 10th March, 1798, where, speaking of Galvanism, he says, “Among the metals that may be thus characterised, I have found none more eminently efficacious in removing diseases than the combinations of copper, zinc, and a small proportion of gold: a precise quantity of each is not necessary: also iron united to a very small proportion of silver and platina; an exact proportion of these also not necessary. These are constructed with points, and of such dimensions as convenience shall dictate. They may be formed with one point, or pointed at each end, or with two or more points. The point of the instrument thus formed I apply to those parts of the body which are affected with diseases, and draw them off on the skin, to a distance from the complaint, and usually towards the extremities.”