Glossary entry

English term or phrase:

metallic tractor

French translation:

tracteurs en métal

Added to glossary by Jean-Luc Crucifix
Feb 13, 2005 23:05
19 yrs ago
1 viewer *
English term

metallic tractor

English to French Medical Medical: Instruments
Voici la description de l'instrument:

A very rare set of c. 1790s antique Perkins tractors with original case. Each galvanic metallic tractor is marked: PERKINS / PATENT / TRACTORS. Elisha Perkins (1741-1799), of Plainfield, Connecticut, received the first medical patent issued under the Constitution of the United States, in 1796, for this device. The Perkins' tractors were medical quackery, of course, but Perkinism promised electrotherapeutic cures for pains in the head, face, teeth, breast, side, stomach, back, rheumatism and some gouts. The son of Elisha Perkins, Benjamin Douglas Perkins (1774-1810), was the great promoter of the tractors, most notably in England. He also opened the market to the veterinary trade by authoring a pamphlet, The Family Remedy; or, Perkins's Patent Metallic Tractors, For the Relief of Topical Disease of the Human Body: And of Horses, 1800. For a decade the use of tractors was a rage...even George Washington is said to have bought a set. James Gillray, the English social critic and cartoonist, famously spoofed the use of the Perkins' invention, in 1801, which he labeled the Rod of Aesculapios [sic] (the Greek and Roman god of medicine, Aeskulapios or Aesculapius).
Proposed translations (French)
4 tracteurs en métal

Proposed translations

23 mins
English term (edited): metallic tractors
Selected

tracteurs en métal

En Angleterre sévissait la mode des tracteurs d’Elisha Perkins, médecin américain de Plainfield (mort en 1779, lors d’une épidémie de fièvre jaune contre laquelle sa méthode thérapeutique ne put rien...). Ils s’agissait de baguettes en métal : l’une en cuivre, l’autre en fer, reliées à l’une de leurs extrémités et qui étaient réputées antalgiques lorsqu’elles étaient appliquées sur la zone douloureuse.

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Note added at 51 mins (2005-02-13 23:57:30 GMT)
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http://www.pseudo-sciences.org/placebo 252.pdf
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