176 A Last Word About Christian Science. 



president, Governor Franklin vice-president, and Lord Hanneker. a 

 fellow of the Royal Society, one of its members. All this time the 

 son was coining money by selling Tractors for twenty- five dollars, 

 which cost less than twenty-five cents. A hospital was built where the 

 only treatment was " Tractoration." Persons in the highest positions 

 willingly gave testimonials telling of marvelous cures wrought on them- 

 selves and their friends by the wonderful Tractors. The bishops and 

 clergymen on both sides of the Atlantic were eager to thrust forward 

 evidence on this medical topic. The lame were made to walk, stiff and 

 useless limbs were rendered flexible, chronic rheumatism and paralysis 

 cured, sleep produced, pain allayed, etc., etc. The bubble of fraud 

 was at last burst by a physician who experimented on patients with 

 tractors made of wood, with which he was quite as successful as with 

 the metallic ones. The Perkinistic enthusiam however did not die out 

 at once, but passed so gradually and quietly away that the date of its 

 death is not recorded. Froude says: "Belief in the marvelous does 

 not rise from evidence, and will not yield to it." 



Another instance of a similar illusion was that of John St. John 

 Long, who early in this century achieved such success in London as 

 a healer of diseases, that his income for several years exceeded $60,000. 

 He pretended to have a wonderful liniment which when applied to a 

 healthy part was as harmless as water, but when applied to a surface 

 covering a diseased part caused the morbific humor to exude. His 

 success was great. Patients from London and all parts of the country 

 rushed to consult the miracle-worker. Ladies of the highest rank 

 hastened to place themselves and their daughters under his care. He 

 was shrewd enough not to undertake to cure cases which were appar- 

 ently hopeless. He went into fashionable society, and was a lion in 

 the most aristocratic circles. He wrote a book called " Discoveries in 

 the Science and Art of Healing," which was well padded with testi- 

 monials of miraculous cures from his aristocratic friends. But mis- 

 fortune overtook him, resulting from the bad effects of his liniments 

 in a few cases. These trials scarcely lessened his popularity, and he 

 went about proclaiming himself a martyr, comparing his case with 

 Galileo, Harvey and others. He died young, and his admirers raised 

 a magnificent monument to his memory, adorned with a long and lauda- 

 tory inscription. The wonderful liniment turned out to be acetic acid, 

 which looks much like water. He of course substituted water when 

 he did not want the " morbific humor " to come out, and so gulled his 

 willing victims. 



Perhaps the most remarkable example of credulity and superstition 

 is found in the history of two quackeries which flourished in the six- 



