New Publications. 189 
according to thofe of M.' Steffens, in malum ifchiaticum and 
megrim. According to M. Bang, the pains in fome cafes 
were increafed, and in others allayed. According to M. Blech, 
the tractors were of ufe in bemicrania and gouty pains in the 
head ; and, according to M. Hahn, in rheumatic pains in 
both fhoulders. The principal document in this collection 
appears to be a letter of Profeflor Abileaard, in whofe opi- 
nion Perkins’s tractors will never acquire much value in me- 
dicine, and fcarcely even have the merit of being a pallia- 
_tive; but, ina phyfical point of view, he thinks they deferve 
the-attention of phyficians, and particularly of phyfiologifts. 
Mankind, he fays, hitherto have paid too Iittle attention to 
the influence which electricity has on the human’ body; 
otherwife they would know that the effets produced on it 
by our beds is no matter of indifference. If the feather beds 
and hair mattreffes, &c. are perfeétly dry, the perfon who 
fleeps on them is in an infulated ftate; but the contrary 1s 
the cafe if they are moift. He three times remoyed a pain 
in the knee, by {ticking the tractors, one on each fide of the 
knee, fo deep through the ftockings that the points. touched 
the fkin. He removed a rheumatic pain fn the head from a 
lady by the fame means. M. Kafn, by the tractors, re- 
lieved, in others, gouty pains of the head, and megrim; and 
in himfelf, a rheumatic pain of the back, which, according 
to his fenfations, was like a conftriétion in the cellular tiffue. 
M. Herholdt, from his experiments, confiders the effect of the 
tractors as indefinite and relative as that of other remedies, 
He, however, faw relief given by them in the firangury,in 
a eafe of fyphilis. M. Bang alfo, at Soroe, freed a man from 
a violent gouty pain in the thigh by drawing the tractors, 
200 times over the affected part. M. Jacoblen likewife 
found benefit derived from thefe traCtors feyeral times in the 
common hofpital at Copenhagen. .M. Tode tried them alfo 
in rheumatic pains, tooth-ache, inflammation of the eyes, 
and obferyed that they neither did good nor harm. ; 
~ According to the editor, the tractars act as a mechanical 
ftimulus, 
