The influence of metallic tractors on the human body, in removing various painful inflammatory diseases ... Lately discoverd by Dr. [Elisha] Perkins ... and demonstrated in a series of experiments ... By which the importance of the discovery is fully ascertained, and a new field of enquiry opened in the modern science of galvanism, or, animal electricity / by Benjamin Douglas Perkins.

Date:
1799
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The influence of metallic tractors on the human body, in removing various painful inflammatory diseases ... Lately discoverd by Dr. [Elisha] Perkins ... and demonstrated in a series of experiments ... By which the importance of the discovery is fully ascertained, and a new field of enquiry opened in the modern science of galvanism, or, animal electricity / by Benjamin Douglas Perkins. 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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    dogmatifts of feventeen centuries. Yet there are few difcoveries in the healing art, but what meet with tumultuous oppofition from the congregat- ed legions of prejudice, ignorance, and ambition. Some nominal philofophers difbelieve every pro- pofition that does not accord with the doftrines of their anceftors; and others are fo extremely il- liberal as to difeard every new principle in which they can have no claim to interest. A glaring example of the latter we have in the degrading denunciations of the European philofophers, when the illuftrious Dr. Franklin s difeovery of the identity of lightning and eleftricity was firft de- livered to the world. A fecond, no lefs true, we have in the difeovery of Dr. Perkins's Metal- lic Influence^ which will, like the former, arife triumphant amidfl: the counter, but futile vocife- ration of prejudice and ignorance. Some rejeft the latter becaufe they were not the difeoverers. Others queftion the teftimony of their fenfes, becaufe they cannot explain the modus operandi^ by referring it to the old doilrines of Van Helmont, Doleus, or Stahl. Yet the happy day is perhaps not far difant, when envy muft fall a facrifice to truth, and behold this problem ac- counted for on a native law of the animal ceco- nomy. That