of brass, about three inches in length, and pointed at one end. One of these was held in each hand of the operator, and the points being placed in contact, were gently drawn over the part of the body in which the pain was felt or the disease was supposed to be seated. By these means, if we may believe thousands of witnesses of the highest respectability, immediate and permanent relief was always effected in all curable cases. At length some individuals, who had more faith in the power of the imagination than in the efficacy of the tractors, procured painted wooden points, which so nicely resembled the metallic as to pass for the genuine, and it was found, upon trial, that these painted sticks effected cures quite as readily as the genuine metallic tractors. When these facts came to be generally known, it was found that even the genuine points ceased to cure. The charm was dissolved—the talisman fled—reason returned, and Perkinsism came to a speedy and final end.
The history of Perkinsism may serve as a key to Homœopathy and many other delusions. Both the history of the past and the experience of the
