He was an illustrious man, but he held
two very odd opinions; that tar water was everything, and that the whole
material universe was nothing.

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Most of those present have at some time in their lives heard mention
made of the METALLIC TRACTORS, invented by one Dr. Perkins, an American,
and formerly enjoying great repute for the cure of various diseases.
Many have seen or heard of a satirical poem, written by one of our
own countrymen also, about forty years since, and called "Terrible
Tractoration." The Metallic Tractors are now so utterly abandoned that
I have only by good fortune fallen upon a single one of a pair, to show
for the sake of illustration. For more than thirty years this great
discovery, which was to banish at least half the evils which afflict
humanity, has been sleeping undisturbed in the grave of oblivion. Not a
voice has, for this long period, been raised in its favor; its noble and
learned patrons, its public institutions, its eloquent advocates, its
brilliant promises are all covered with the dust of silent neglect;
and of the generation which has sprung up since the period when it
flourished, very few know anything of its history, and hardly even
the title which in its palmy days it bore of PERKINISM. Taking it as
settled, then, as no one appears to answer for it, that Perkinism is
entirely dead and gone, that both in public and private, officially
and individually, its former adherents even allow it to be absolutely
defunct, I select it for anatomical examination. If this pretended
discovery was made public; if it was long kept before the public; if it
was addressed to the people of different countries; if it was formally
investigated by scientific men, and systematically adopted by benevolent
persons, who did everything in their power to diffuse the knowledge
and practice of it; if various collateral motives, such as interest
and vanity, were embarked in its cause; if, notwithstanding all these
things, it gradually sickened and died, then the conclusion seems a fair
one, that it did not deserve to live. Contrasting its failure with
its high pretensions, it is fair to call it an imposition; whether
an expressly fraudulent contrivance or not, some might be ready to
question. Everything historically shown to have happened concerning the
mode of promulgation, the wide diffusion, the apparent success of this
delusion, the respectability and enthusiasm of its advoca