1801

Metallic-Tractors

British, 1756 - 1815

Here an operator applies metallic tractors to ease the pain caused by the carbuncles on a red-nosed patient resembling John Bull, the traditional personification of Great Britain. The tractors were brass and iron instruments patented in the United States by Elisha Perkins (1741-1799), a Connecticut physician, who claimed that his invention could draw out disease by electrical force.