Elisha Perkins, an American physician, the inventor of the metallic tractors, born in Norwich, Conn., Jan. 16, 1741, died in New York, Sept. 6, 1799. He was educated by his father for the profession of medicine, and began the practice of it in Plainfield, where he was very successful. About 1796 he invented the metallic tractors, consisting of two instruments, one resembling brass and the other steel, but professedly of a peculiar composition of metals, three inches long and pointed at the ends. They were used chiefly in local inflammations, such as pains in the head, face, teeth, and side, in rheumatism and similar diseases, the points being applied to the part, and then drawn over it in a downward direction for about 20 minutes. This method of cure was recommended by the faculties of three institutions in the United States. In Copenhagen 12 physicians and surgeons, most of them instructors in the royal Frederick's hospital, began a course of experiments, an account of which was published in an octavo volume, and gave their opinion in favor of the new system, which they called Perkinism. In London, where the tractors were introduced by Dr. Perkins's son, a Perkinian institution, under the presidency of Lord Rivers, was established, chiefly for the benefit of the poor.

The cases of cures published numbered 5,000, and were certified to by 8 professors, 40 physicians and surgeons, and 30 clergymen. The list of persons claimed to have been cured by this remedy amounted to an almost fabulous number; but a few vears after the death of the inventor the tractors fell into neglect almost as speedily as they had become celebrated. Dr. Perkins invented also an antiseptic medicine, and administered it with great success in the low state of dysentery arid ulcerated sore throat. Anxious to test its efficacy against the yellow fever, he went to New York in 1799 during the prevalence of that disease; but after four weeks of unremitting toil he himself died of the fever.