Benjamin Rush

Portrait of Benjamin Rush by Charles Willson Peale, 1783.

Benjamin Rush (December 24, 1745 - April 19, 1813) was an American physician, educator, chemist, writer, and Founding Father. He was one of Pennsylvania's delegates to the Continental Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is called the "Father of American Psychiatry" for his work with mental illness and the American Psychiatric Association uses his likeness on their official seal. Every physician in America up until the Civil War was influenced by the practices and teachings of Dr. Rush.

Early Life and Education

Rush was born on the outskirts of Philadelphia in Byberry Township. His father, a gunsmith, died when Benjamin was 6 years old and he was raised by his mother. He began his formal education at the age of 8 at the Nottingham Academy, under the tutelage of his Presbyterian uncle, the Reverend Steve Finley. At the age of 13 he was accepted into the College of New Jersey, a Presbyterian school which is known today as Princeton University. Two years later he was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree decided to pursue a medical career. His uncle secured him a six year apprenticeship with the leading physician in Philadelphia, Dr. John Redman. Rush proved to be a skillful apprentice, and in 1766 he traveled to London and enrolled at the University of Edinburgh, the top medical school in the world. In London, Rush wrote to the most famous American in England, Benjamin Franklin, in hopes of having him write letters of introduction to his connections at Edinburgh. Although Franklin and Rush had never met, the letters were written and it began a lifelong friendship between the two men. Rush excelled at Edinburgh and after his first year he was admited into the exclusive Medical Society. Rush was also converted to republicanism by a schoolmate, who convinced him to redirect his anger at Parliament over the Stamp Act of 1765 towards the monarch instead. Rush would graduate from Edinburgh in 1768 and time in London and Paris cultivating his professional and political mind before returning to Philadelphia in 1769.

Philadelphia's Physician

Rush faced the challenge of establishing a practice in a city split among religious lines and already having a good amount of quality physicians. Consequently, he began his practice by focusing on the poor. He formed the Society for Inoculating the Poor which provided free smallpox vaccinations. He also had a profitable apprenticeship program, teaching seven or more apprentices at a time for a fee.

On August 1, 1769, Rush was chosen by the board of trustees of the College of Philadelphia (renamed University of Pennsylvania in 1789) as professor of chemistry. He was the first person to hold such a position in the colonies. He also wrote Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Chemistry, the first American chemistry textbook. In 1789, he gave up his chemistry position and began teaching medicine instead.

Rush made his first medical publication on October 14, 1769, titled Dissertation on the Spasmodic Asthma of Children. He went on to write and publish a series of essays that dealt with dieting, physical exercise, and the gout. On November 2, 1770, in a speech before the American Philosophical Society, Rush attacked the popular medical practices of the day, which were influenced by Hermann Boerhaave. He was a proponent of bloodletting to cure diseases, because he was convinced that fevers originated from arterial tension. His radical new ideas on medicine caused him to be an outcast among his peers, who would subsequently stop sending him referrals. Despite being at odds with the medical and religious communities, his success continued to grow. The income from his publications, his salary from teaching, and his number of patients doubling from 1772-1773, allowed for him to be financially secure enough to become more politically active.

Rush's writings about the political events surrounding the colonies led to his correspondence leading politicians such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He also encouraged the work of Thomas Paine, including suggesting the name Common Sense as well as providing some of it's ideas.

In August 1793, there was a mass influx of refugees arriving in Philadelphia from the island of Santo Domingo (present day Haiti). Many of them were infected with yellow fever and the mosquitos that spread it made the voyage as well. By November, 5,000 people, which was 10% of the population, had died. Rush was at the forefront of treating and studying the disease. He quickly diagnosed the disease and advised people to flee the city. He incorrectly believed treatment called for heavy bloodletting, sometimes draining up to four fifths of a patients blood. He also persuaded members of the black community to serve as nurses because he believed they were immune to the disease, which also turned out to be untrue. At the end of the epidemic he published his observations in An Account of the Bilious remitting Yellow Fever, which gained him international recognition.

American Revolution

Rush was elected to the Second Continental Congress and served from 1776-1777, where he would go on to sign the Declaration of Independence. He would also be a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly that ratified the Constitution in 1787. He also served from 1776-1778 as a surgeon in the Continental Army. Rush found the conditions to be inexcusably substandard and was sharply critical of his former teacher, William Shippen, as well as George Washington.

Opposition to Slavery

Rush was also a prominent abolitionist. In 1773, he wrote the pamphlet An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, upon Slave-Keeping. The pamphlet, written in support of piece of legislation to increase import taxes on slaves, attacked the popular claim that by treating slaves well they were afforded a better life than if they were free. He also joined the Pennsylvania Abolition Society in 1787 and helped to rewrite their constitution.

Bibliography

• Brodsky, Alyn. Benjamin Rush: Patriot and Physician (New York: Truman Talley, 2004)

External Links

• Biography from Rev. Charles A. Goodrich, Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence. (New York: William Reed & Co., 1856) Pages 244-261
• US Congress Biography
• Benjamin Rush Main Page at Virtualology.com
• Biography from A Princeton Companion
• Biography and some writings at Dickinson College
• Benjamin Rush Society for Healing Arts Professionals
• Destroying Angel: Benjamin Rush, Yellow Fever and the Birth of Modern Medicine - Online book, essays, primary documents by Bob Arnebeck