Terrible Tractoration, and Other Poems

A viciously funny early American satire that dissects medical quackery with the precision of a scalpel. Dr. Christopher Caustic, a pompous and deeply deluded physician, schemes for fame and fortune through his grand (and entirely ridiculous) scientific theories. The poems target the notorious metallic tractors a fraudulent device promoted as a cure-all that swept through America like a fever, with charlatans charging desperate patients to wave metal rods over their bodies. Fessenden's verse is witty, barbed, and surprisingly sharp, exposing the vanity of medical poseurs and the credulity of a public hungry for miracle cures. Though rooted in a specific historical moment, the satire feels eerily modern: here is the hype cycle, the snake-oil salesman, and the true believer convinced of their own genius. This is American satire at its earliest and most incisive, a reminder that the con has always been with us.