Gillray (James)

Metallic-Tractors,

London, Henry G. Bohn, 1849.
a social satire on quack doctors, specifically the American Benjamin Perkins, who came to London in the late 1790s and for a few years promoted his father’s patented ‘Metallic Tractors’, small pointed instruments for poking, and ‘curing’, all manner of ailment including tumours, inflammations, gout, and epilepsy. The scene depicts a lean physician attending to a portly seated gentleman, displacing his wig to grip him by the top of his head while he applies the sharp implement to the patient’s bulbous nose, causing flaming vapours to be emitted, along with obvious pain as the latter grimaces and clenches both fists. On the table beside them lies a newspaper, The True Briton, on which can be read a puff piece, ‘Grand Exhibition in Leicester Square, just arrived from America the Rod of Æsculapius. Perkinism in all its Glory – being a certain Cure for all Disorders, Red Noses, Gouty Toes, Windy Bowels, Broken Legs, Hump Backs. Just discover’d, the Grand Secret of the Philosopher’s Stone with the True way of turning all Metals into Gold, pro bono publico.’.

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