Elisha Perkins
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Elisha Perkins (January 16, 1741 – 1799) was a US physician who created his own therapy, Perkins Patent Tractors.
Elisha Perkins was born 1741 in Norwich, Connecticut. His son Joseph Perkins trained in Plainfield, Connecticut, where he also practiced medicine.
Around 1795–1796 Perkins invented and patented his "Tractors". They were two 3-inch metal rods with a point at the end. Although they were made of steel and brass, Perkins claimed that they were made of unusual metal alloys. Perkins used his rods to cure inflammation, rheumatism and pain in the head and the face. He applied the points on the aching body part and passed them over the part for about 20 minutes. Perkins claimed they could "draw off the noxious electrical fluid that lay at the root of suffering".
Although the Connecticut Medical Society condemned the tractors as "delusive quackery", Perkins managed to convince three US medical faculties that his method worked. In Copenhagen, Denmark, 12 surgeons at the Royal Frederick Hospital also began to support the method. Even George Washington bought a set. Other physicians' criticisms were met with charges of elitism and professional arrogance. Perkins boasted of 5,000 cured cases.
Perkins' son Benjamin Douglas introduced the tractors to London, and Lord Rivers founded a Perkinsian Institution for the benefit of the poor. In 1798 Benjamin Perkins published The Influence of Metallic Tractors on the Human Body.
Shortly before his death Perkins also invented antiseptic medicine and used it for dysentery and sore throat. In 1799 he went to New York to try his methods during a yellow fever epidemic but died of the disease himself four weeks later.
After Perkins' death, British physicians began to have doubts about his tractors. In 1799 physician John Haygarth made a test in which he treated five rheumatic patients with wooden tractors that were made to resemble the metallic ones. Four of them reported that the pain was relieved. The next day the patients were treated with metallic tractors with the same results.
Attempts to use the tractors to cure animals proved futile. However, by that time Perkins had numerous influential supporters and the sale of the tractors continued.
Benjamin Perkins died in 1810. Only after that did the popularity of the tractors began to wane.
