A prolific essayist, he published works on topics such as weather phenomena and comets.
Perkins became well known among his contemporaries and regularly corresponded with Benjamin Franklin on topics as diverse as smallpox, colds, tornadoes, and coal formation.
While Benjamin Franklin was in Paris, he received an account from Perkins on epidemic catarrhal fevers, and recommended it to the Société de la Médecine.
[4] During the siege of Boston, he moved back to Lynn, the town of his birth, and died there not long after.
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