Thomas Green Fessenden

“ Forty thousand human creatures, dragged from their homes and connexions, cease to exist, and have manured the earth; but the quantity of organized matter, of which they were composed, presently revives in the forms of millions of microscopic animals, vegetables, and insects, and afterwards of quadrupeds and men; the sum of whose happiness is, perhaps, greater than that of the harrassed soldier, by whose destruction they have gained their existence! ”

“ It now remains to speak of horses, and these (not to mention the Bucephalus of Alexander, or the Pegasus of doctor Caustic) I shall show, in a very few words, can boast of performances and qualifications, to which a lively fancy in the comparison is but as the wit of an oyster to the wisdom of a philosopher. One of the most scientific nations that ever existed, renowned alike for its refinements in the arts, and prowess in war, has been compelled to yield the palm to the superior attainments of a horse, and acknowledge its inability to achieve what he most readily effected. ”

“ A great hue and cry has been raised by the Perkinites, by which some of the less penetrating part of the profession have been awed into silence, respecting the duty of medical practitioners. They say that it is the duty of a medical man to employ only such means as will cure his patient in the most safe, cheap, and expeditious manner. This infamous pretension takes its origin from no other person than Perkins himself. ”

“ After the ample proof I have now given of the infinite superiority of the dog to man, when his merits are fairly estimated, which it is very difficult for us, being interested, to do without prejudice, I shall take it for granted, that he must possess all the brilliancy even of a poet’s imagination, and therefore that he is far more likely to be cured by imagination than man. ”

“ Lest you should not have sufficient ingenuity to comprehend the object of Dr Haygarth, in producing these operations on the minds of those paupers, by the aid of such means as he employed, I must try to explain it. It was to induce an inference on the part of the public, that if, by any means whatsoever, effects can be produced on the mind of a poor bedridden patient, whether such effect be favorable or unfavorable (as the latter was often the case in Haygarth’s experiments) ergo, Perkins’s tractors cure diseases by acting on the mind also, whether on a human or brute subject. ”

“ By taking the animal machine to pieces, you may divest it of such particles as clog its wheels, and render its motions less perfect. A decayed, worn-out gallant may have its parts separated, thoroughly burnished, botched together, and rendered as bright as a new-coined silver sixpence. Thus my venerable Piccadilly friend, who, as Darwin expresses it, sometimes “clasps a beauty in Platonic arms;” if he should, fifty years hence, perceive that the mechanism of his frame is rather the worse for wear, may come to Dr Caustic, and be rebuilt into as fine a young buck as any in Christendom. ”

“ If one might indulge imagination in supposing how such a globe was formed, I should conceive, that all the elements in separate particles being originally mixed in confusion, and occupying a great space, they would, as soon as the Almighty fiat ordained gravity or the mutual attraction of certain parts and the mutual repulsion of other parts to exist, all move towards their common centre: That the air being a fluid whose parts repel each other, though drawn to the common centre by their gravity, would be densest towards the centre and rarer as more remote ”

“ They even have the audacity to assert, that “American physicians and philosophers, who have viewed the rise and progress of pestilence, walked amidst it by day and by night, year after year, and endured its violence on their own persons, almost to the extinction of their lives,” ought to be as competent judges of the cause and cure of the disease as Dr Haygarth, who has never seen a case of it. ”

“ Secondly, it would be impossible to manufacture a system, like that of St Pierre, accounting for the various phenomena of nature, in a new and simple method, if one were obliged to proceed, like Newton, in his Principia, in a dull, plodding, mathematical manner, and prove, or even render probable, the things he asserts. But by taking some facts for granted, without proof, omitting to mention such as militate against a favorite theory, we may, with great facility, erect a splendid edifice of “airy nothings,” founded on hypotheses without foundation. ”

“ On the right are fumes rampant, indicative of my discoveries, which soar above those of all other pretenders. In the centre are nine hedgehogs, with quills, stickant, a happy emblem of my peaceable disposition.
My motto, which I trust sir Isaac has also registered, is worthy of notice. Dr Darwin was much pleased with it, and, desirous to emulate my fame in the art of motto making, made “OMNIA E CONCHIS.” But your worships will perceive that the doctor’s motto bears no comparison with mine, in point of erudition; as I prove myself versed in three languages; whereas he can boast of only one. ”

“ In commending Christopher Caustic, we are only subscribing to the opinions expressed by the people of another country. To be behind that country in our appreciation of his merits, were a stigma; it is very pardonable to go beyond it. National vanity may be a folly, but national ingratitude is a crime. ”

“ We now intend to prove not only that we were correct in our statement, but that light, heat or caloric, electricity, Galvanism, Perkinism, animal spirits, the social feelings, especially when love is concerned, and the stimulus of society, are all intimately connected or different modifications of the same matter.
We will show that light and heat are the same thing in essence, by the authority of some of our prime philosophers whom it would be heresy to dispute or gainsay. ”

“ That learn’d physicians pine with hunger.
No man who possesses a heart, certainly none who possesses bowels, can view us reduced to this deplorable condition, and hear this pathetic appeal, without the sincerest commiseration. The eminent services that our profession have rendered mankind, in contributing to avert some of the greatest curses that ever befel the civilized part of the world, are too well known, and have been too frequently acknowledged to be forgotten, ungratefully, in the day of our adversity. ”

“ I feel a very great solicitude to mould and modify every part and parcel of this performance according to rules and regulations of the best master-builders of epic poems, tragedies, and other great things of that kind. The judicious critic will perceive that all my wounds are inflicted with anatomical accuracy, and I have no doubt but my friend Dr Haygarth will do himself the honor to write a treatise upon this subject, and tell the world with what terrible propriety we have hewed and hacked our opponents in the field of battle. ”

“ It is to me somewhat remarkable that theorizing Frenchmen, many of whose discoveries are scarcely less important than my own, cannot make them apply in such a manner as to effect some practical good in society. Buffon discovered that a dog was a species of demi-god, and appears on the point of worshipping this great Anubis of the Egyptians. Voltaire tells us, that Frenchmen are half monkey and half tiger, and everybody knows that the one is insufferably mischievous, and the other infinitely ferocious. ”

“ The fruit of associating with the dog was the conquest and the peaceable possession of the earth. The dog will always preserve his empire. He reigns at the head of a flock, and makes himself better understood than the voice of the shepherd” (well he might, for it appears he is more knowing, more powerful, and more just.) “Safety, order, and discipline, are the fruits of his vigilance and activity. They are a people submitted to his management, whom he conducts and protects, and against whom he never employs force but for the preservation of peace and good order.” Barr’s Buffon, vol. ”

“ An old lady of my acquaintance was actually advised by an ingenious son of Galen, an apothecary, resident a few miles north of London, to swallow tractors for an internal complaint. If our profession were to follow this laudable example, and force their patients to swallow them for pills, and then give the public a judicious detail of the terrible consequences, ending with the death of the patients, Perkinism would sink into that contempt in the estimation of the public which it justly deserves. ”

“ As it would, however, be highly commendable for gentlemen of your honorable profession not to rest with a superficial view of the great operations of nature, I will accompany you as far as the centre of gravity, in a journey of observation, for investigating the astonishing magazines of burning materials which Dr Hutton and professor Playfair have furnished us for the execution of our stupendous project. ”

“ Now, as I am a great admirer of French principles, and that new and accommodating kind of morality, by Frenchmen discovered, and which I ever have and ever will eulogize, to the utmost extent of my faculties, perhaps your worships will express no small degree of wonderment why I should be the intimate friend of a gentleman, the blaze of whose oratory, one would suppose, would have blasted Buonaparte, and even singed the whole French republic. ”

“ When said animal happens to be a hero, a tiger, an irritated ram cat, or a black snake intent on his game, visible flashes of electricity will blaze from the eyes, and communicate very sensible shocks to a spectator. Thus the Gaul, who was commanded to cut off the head of Marius, a celebrated Roman general, and a personage full of the most positive sort of animal electricity, received such a stroke of lightning from the battery of that hero’s head, and at the same time was so thunderstruck with the exclamation of “Tune, homo, [191] audes occidere Caium Marium?” ”

“ The doctor advertised this story;
And you’ll confound the tractoring folks
By Haygarth’s tale of lady Hoax. [95] [142]
Tell one more tale from ancient sages,
About the wonderous chain of ages,
Gold, silver, brass, but not a link,
Composed of copper, or of zinc. [143]
That, as it ever was the curse
Of man to go from bad to worse,
This age (the thought might e’en distract us)
Is that of vile metallic tractors!
That your last sixpence you will bet all,
Ages will follow of worse metal,
Unless this wickedness you stop,
To sweepings of a black-smith’s shop! ”

“ My mode of commencing an airy tour, mounted, Muse and Co. on a poetical pony, which, by the way, is metamorphosed into a cutter, may, perhaps, be objected to by your fastidious critics, as a liberty even beyond a poet’s licentiousness. But there is nothing which we men of genius more thoroughly detest than any attempt to fetter our faculties with the frigid rules of criticism. ”

“ He began lamenting that so sensible a person as the patient should be caught in the use of so contemptible a piece of quackery as the tractors. After assuring the patient that he had thrown away his five guineas, for that it was well established by Dr Haygarth, that a brick-bat, tobacco-pipe, goose-quill, or even the bare finger, would perform the same cures, he was interrupted by his patient: ‘And are you sincere in your belief that you could have produced, by those means, the same effects upon me, which I have experienced from the tractors?’ ‘Do I believe it? ”

“ Now, this is exactly the case in the present instance; for in your attempt to show that medical men believe and trust in no medicine, the modus operandi of which they do not comprehend, you make a sacrifice of truth, decency, and common sense, the full reward of which sacrifice you ought to enjoy unmolested. That no man can explain how mercury poisons, bark cures an intermittent fever, or opium produces sleep, is confessed by every medical author ”

“ I have therefore to repeat, that when the Perkinites complain of your rejecting the use of tractors, because their modus operandi cannot be entirely explained, although you adopt the use of drugs, the operation of which is equally or more inexplicable, your sacrifice in support of your ground is so great, that whoever attempts to drive you from such ground deserves to be laid low with the first weapon that comes to hand. ”

“ If I were not willing that he should retain his popularity, I should make it appear that the small-pox was created with the intent of being universally propagated among the human race for the purpose of mortifying female vanity; and Jenner’s attempt to extirpate it, by substituting the cow-pox, which ought to have been confined to the quadrupeds, among which it originated, as the tractors ought to have been to the Indians, is the extreme of presumption, and the height of iniquity. ”

“ Some of our profession have, to their eternal disgrace, since their retirement on their fortunes, deserted our cause, and are now to be found in the ranks of our enemies. These fellows have the presumption to suggest that their duty to the interests of the community supersedes that which they owe to their old brethren, the unreasonableness of which sentiment I conceive to be self-evident, and therefore shall not trouble myself to prove it. ”

“ So said the learned bishop Berekley, in a scientific treatise called Principles of Human Knowledge, in which his reverence makes it apparent, to those who have a clue to his metaphysical labyrinth, that there is no such thing as matter, entity, or sensation, distinct from the mind which perceives, or thinks it perceives, such ideas or substances. The bishop’s authority being so pat in point, I cannot but admire that it has not more frequently been adduced in opposition to the tractors. ”

“ We are point blank opposed to allowing females any advantages for education, which can possibly induce their ladyships to set up for literata. “Knowledge is Power,” and whereas the “seraphic sex” are prone to acquire knowledge with more facility, and communicate it with more felicity than the rough samples of humanity with whom Madam Destiny has had the impudence to connect them by ties (pretty easily severed nowadays) we are amazingly apprehensive that ladies will not only monopolize our trade of authorship, but usurp our places in Church, State and Medicine. ”

“ Thus far we have proceeded triumphantly in making it [189] abundantly evident that light, heat, and electricity are the same in substance; so that if your worships will permeate this subject with due retention and some small share of true philosophical perspicacity, you will find that heat and electricity are the dregs or sediment of light, and by digesting Dr Black’s theory of latent heat, you will find that the matter of heat, light, and electricity exists in very vast abundance in all bodies and substances. ”