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A therapeutical means, first employed by Dr. Elisha Perkins, of Norwich, Connecticut, towards the termination of the last century, and named after him. It consisted in drawing over affected or other parts the pointed extremities of two metallic rods, called Metallic Tractors, each made of a different metal. The success obtained, was through the influence of the imagination; and, consequently, as a remedial agent, it ranks as high as animal magnetism, but no higher. The operation was, also, called Tractoration.

An obsolete form of metallotherapy.

A form of suggestive therapeutics in which the treatment consisted in rubbing on the skin two "tractors," or pointed rods, made of different metals.

(Dr. Perkins, inventor). The use of metallic tractors (q.v.).