Benjamin Rush (January 4, 1746, O.S. December 24, 1745 – April 19, 1813) was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence and a civic leader in Philadelphia, where he was a physician, politician, social reformer, humanitarian, and educator as well as the founder of Dickinson College.
School period
Gallery of Benjamin Rush
West Nottingham Academy, 1079 Firetower Road Colora, Maryland 21917-1502 United States
At the age of eight Rush was sent to the school conducted by his uncle, Reverend Samuel Finley, which later became West Nottingham Academy.
College/University
Gallery of Benjamin Rush
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, United States
Rush attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1760.
Gallery of Benjamin Rush
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Rush received his Doctor's degree in medicine from the University of Edinburgh in June 1768.
Career
Gallery of Benjamin Rush
1783
Benjamin Rush Painting by Peale
Gallery of Benjamin Rush
A memorial bronze medal dedicated to Benjamin Rush.
Gallery of Benjamin Rush
Physician, chemist, writer and revolutionary: Benjamin Rush (1746-1813).
Achievements
Navy Hill, Washington, DC, United States
Statue of Benjamin Rush on "Navy Hill" which is, due to security, in a section of Washington, DC.
Membership
American Philosophical Society
1772 - 1813
American Philosophical Society, 104 S. Fifth St. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Rush had become a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1772 and cultivated other than purely professional interests.
An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind: With an Account of the Means of Preventing, and of the Remedies for Curing Them
An Inquiry Into The Effects Of Ardent Spirits Upon The Human Body And Mind: With An Account Of The Means Of Preventing, And Of The Remedies For Curing Them
Benjamin Rush was a prominent American civic leader, physician, politician, social reformer, humanitarian, and educator. He is remembered as the founder of Dickinson College and for his outstanding efforts in the Continental Congress that led to the establishment of the Declaration of Independence. He is also highly regarded for his service as a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania.
Background
Benjamin Rush was born on January 4, 1746, on a plantation near Philadelphia, in the agricultural community of Byberry, the fourth of the seven children of John and Susanna (Hall) Harvey Rush. He was descended from John Rush, a yeoman from Oxfordshire, who came to Byberry in 1683. His father, a gunsmith, and farmer, died when Benjamin was but five years old. After his father died, his mother opened a grocery store to support her children.
Education
At the age of eight Rush was sent to the school conducted by his uncle, Reverend Samuel Finley, which later became West Nottingham Academy. After that, he attended the College of New Jersey (now Princeton), where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1760.
Upon returning to Philadelphia Rush first thought of studying law, but changed his mind in favor of medicine. He was a student under Doctor John Redman from 1761 to 1766 and, in addition to this apprenticeship, attended the first lectures of Doctor William Shippen and Doctor John Morgan in the College of Philadelphia. On Doctor Redman's advice, he sailed in 1766 to complete his medical education at the University of Edinburgh. There he sat under such masters as Monro, Secundus, Joseph Black, and John Gregory, and became the friend and disciple of the great William Cullen. He also found time in the society of fellow students to doubt and debate all things, and so became something of a republican and a philosopher as well as a physician. He received his Doctor's degree in June 1768 and immediately went to London for further training in St. Thomas's Hospital.
After a short visit to Paris, Rush returned to Philadelphia in 1769, and at once began to practice medicine. Although he claimed to be without influential friends, he had already arranged an appointment as a professor of chemistry in the College of Philadelphia, the first such chair established in the colonies. While holding it Rush published the first American text in that subject, A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Chemistry (1770, reissued 1773).
His practice grew, at first largely among the poor; but within five years he had a very fair income. Rush attracted attention by his unusual ability and training, and also as the practitioner of a new "system. " Instead of the famous Doctor Hermann Boerhaave, he preached the system of his master, Cullen, with such scorn for the "old school" that he alienated many of his colleagues. He began writing almost at once, and in 1772 published anonymously one of the first American works on personal hygiene, Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise (London, 1772).
In 1773 he published An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America, upon Slave-keeping, and in 1774 helped to organize the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. Maintaining his interest in the quarrel between the colonies and the mother country, he wrote articles for the local press and associated with such patriot leaders as Thomas Paine, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. When the war began he offered his services in the patriot cause.
In June he was elected to the Provincial Conference, in which he was a leader in declaring for independence, and a month later was made a member of the Continental Congress. He, thus, became a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
In April 1777, he was appointed surgeon-general of the armies of the Middle Department. Finding the medical service in a deplorable condition he protested to General Washington, accusing Doctor Shippen, the director-general, of maladministration. Washington referred the matter to Congress, which decided in favor of Shippen, and Rush resigned in consequence. Washington's defeats near Philadelphia, in addition to his own personal experiences, now led Rush to question the general's ability; and caused him to be associated indirectly with the Conway Cabal. He finally wrote an anonymous letter to Governor Patrick Henry of Virginia, urging that Washington be replaced by Gates or Conway. Henry forwarded this to Washington, who recognized Rush's excellent hand and accused him of personal disloyalty. This affair ended Rush's military career, and he returned to his practice in Philadelphia.
In the new University of the State of Pennsylvania, opened in 1778, he began to deliver lectures in 1780. In 1783, he became a member of the staff of the Pennsylvania Hospital and served in that capacity for the rest of his life. Here he saw something of the needs of the sick and the poor, and this aroused again his interest in social reform. Stirred, moreover, by the idealism of the Revolution, he now became a sponsor of the various ameliorative movements which were to remold America in the ensuing century.
Practicing what he preached, he persuaded the Presbyterians to found Dickinson College (1783) and served as one of its trustees. Most of his essays on social reform appeared in magazines of Philadelphia and were later collected and published in 1798 under the title of Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical. While these were extravagantly praised by contemporaries as masterpieces of prose, they have long since been subjected to similarly extreme neglect by American readers.
For a brief period in 1787, Rush once more resorted to the newspapers in the cause of nationalism, this time to urge the acceptance of the new federal Constitution. As a result, he was elected to the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, in which he and James Wilson led the successful movement for adoption. In 1789 these two men inaugurated a campaign that secured for the state a more liberal and effective constitution - the last achievement of Rush's political career. His only direct reward was a later appointment by President Adams as treasurer of the United States Mint (1797 - 1813).
After 1789 Rush devoted himself primarily to his profession. The College of Philadelphia, now reestablished, was merged in 1791 with the University of the State of Pennsylvania to form the University of Pennsylvania. Since the medical faculties of both schools were retained, there was some shifting of academic chairs. Rush had succeeded, upon the death of Doctor Morgan in 1789, to the chair of theory and practice in the college; in January 1792 he became professor of the institutes of medicine and clinical practice in the new university, and in 1796 succeeded Doctor Adam Kuhn as professor of theory and practice as well. In addition to the University connection, he was associated with those who organized the Philadelphia College of Physicians in 1787, although he resigned from this body in the course of the first yellow-fever controversy.
Three aspects of Rush's medical work deserve attention: his "system" of theory and practice; his specific contributions to medical science; and his influence as a teacher. He had inherited from Cullen a complicated nosology, a distrust of natural healing powers, and corresponding confidence in the use of special remedies for each species of disease. He probably also acquired from Cullen, as well as from the general medical philosophy of the day, the view that all theory should be organized, on rational principles, into a "system" that would make practice simple and intelligent. Cullen had urged that each generation formulate new systems, in order to keep pace with advancing scientific knowledge; and during the eighties, two of his ablest pupils, John Brown of Edinburgh and Rush, began to take him at his word. It happened that Cullen's pathology had emphasized the role of the nervous system and nervous energy, rather than the old conceptions concerning the humors and solids. Exaggerating this point, Brown concluded that all diseases were due either to an excess or to a lack of nervous stimulation, and thus indicated either "depleting" or stimulating remedies.
This view soon had a wide following in Europe, and Rush in America was so impressed that he decided to carry "Brunonianism" one step further to its logical conclusion. It is impossible to describe his system briefly without over-simplification, but the essential principle was the reduction of Brown's two types of disease to one. All diseases, he decided, were due to one "proximate" cause, a state of excessive excitability or spasm in the blood vessels, and hence in most cases called for the one treatment of "depletion" through bleeding and purging. Thus, as he himself declared, there was after all but one disease and one type of treatment. This conception was so simple, and so completely the antithesis of the nosology in which he had been trained, that it came to hold for his speculative mind all the fascination of an ultimate panacea. It was, literally, too good to be true, but he confidently proclaimed it when the initial volume of his Medical Inquiries and Observations was published in 1789.
The system was soon pronounced fanciful by various critics, who also declared that its author's fondness for depletion led him to dangerous extremes in practice. He seems to have averaged about ten ounces in ordinary bleedings, but often took more, and was actually willing to remove as much as four-fifths of all the blood in the body. Rush scorned the first criticism on the ground that reasoning and deduction were essentials in the scientific method, and claimed that his treatment succeeded in practice. The real test of this claim seemed to have come in the epidemic of yellow fever which descended upon Philadelphia in 1793. Rush worked with desperation and devotion for three months, while several thousand of his fellow citizens, including members of his own household, died of the "yellow monster." His treatment, he declared, was practically always effective when employed promptly. But the only supporting data he offered were aggressive and dogmatic assertions as to his diagnoses and cures.
He wrote a justly famous account of the epidemic as a whole but failed to keep an exact record of his own cases. In a word, while correct in his view that hypotheses have their place in medicine, he was largely blind to his obligation to check them against the facts. Vital statistics of a sort were already available but he did not use them. The way was thus open for a lay critic, William Cobbett, to point out the correlation between the increasing employment of Rush's treatment and the increasing mortality rate - the more bleeding, the more deaths! The doctor's system, Cobbett observed, is "one of the great discoveries which have contributed to the depopulation of the earth."
The pamphleteer's motives were not above suspicion, and Rush's treatment was not the only variable involved, yet it was indeed impossible to reconcile his claims with the stark fact of the mortality tables. He was not guilty of deliberate misrepresentation, but rather the victim of a certain credulity about diagnoses and cures which characterized much of his work. The epidemic had several immediate effects, so far as Rush was concerned. His view that its "remote" cause was unsanitary conditions antagonized many citizens, and particularly those doctors who ascribed the disease to importation and contagion. Both this issue and that relating to treatments were taken into the newspapers, and Rush again found himself the center of controversy.
Nevertheless, his published accounts of the epidemic, and of those which followed it, won for him recognition by several European governments and learned societies. The chief essay is An Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever, as it Appeared in the City of Philadelphia, in the Year 1793 (1794). It has been remarked that Rush was an observant man, but not a good observer. His shortcomings as a systematic observer have been noted; it remains to point out that he was indeed an observant man in special fields of medicine.
Rush’s practice and teaching of psychiatry culminated in the publication of Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812), the first book on psychiatry by a native American. In this work, he discussed, among many other topics, “moral derangements,” a concept that had concerned him as early as 1786, when he published An Enquiry Into the Influences of Physical Causes Upon the Moral Faculty.
Rush's religious views were extended and polished under President Samuel Davies at the Presbyterian College of New Jersey (later Princeton). He remained devout throughout his life, viewing the world as a great unity, so constructed by a benevolent God that everything was comprehensible, meaningful, and existing for a purpose. However, he died a professing Christian, but without strict denominational attachments. He was at various times a member of the Episcopalian and the Presbyterian churches, accepted the Universalists' view of salvation, and has been claimed by the Unitarians. In fact, his education so broadened his mind as to destroy any spirit of denominationalism, without weakening a generally pious outlook which was the result of early training. His piety, however, was complacent and inconsistent at times; and his occasional use of theological arguments in medical reasoning was survival of medievalism in a method entirely foreign to his abler contemporaries.
Politics
Rush was active as a publisher of tracts lobbying for the elimination of slavery. His social activism eventually branched into other areas. He opposed slavery, advocated for free public schools, sought improved education for women and a more enlightened penal system. He supported Thomas Jefferson for president in 1796 over the eventual winner, John Adams. His political reform activities: he signed the Declaration of Independence and fought for the federal constitution.
His republican enthusiasm led him to favor an improved education for girls, a comprehensive system of schools culminating in a national university, and a theory of education which gave greater freedom to children and encouraged their training in science and utilitarian subjects rather than in the traditional disciplines.
Views
Rush was interested in the plight of the mentally ill and the poor, established the first free dispensary in the United States, and campaigned against public and capital punishment and for general penal reform. He also concerned himself with education, advocating education for women, less emphasis on classics and more on utilitarian subjects, and a national educational system capped by a national university.
During the Revolutionary War, Rush was in the field with the colonial military. In this capacity, the physician’s first professional recognition of the problem of alcohol involved the level of drunkenness among soldiers of the Continental Army – an issue of concern to George Washington as well.
Quotations:
”I am aware that the efforts of science and humanity, in applying their resources to the cure of a disease induced by a vice, will meet with a cold reception from many people.”
“Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of Men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a Special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom.”
“I have alternately been called an Aristocrat and a Democrat. I am neither. I am a Christocrat.”
“Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error.”
“Temperate, sincere, and intelligent inquiry and discussion are only to be dreaded by the advocates of error. The truth need not fear them...”
“The only foundation for... a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this, there can be no virtue, and without virtue, there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”
“[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.”
“The American war is over; but this far from being the case with the American revolution. On the contrary, nothing but the first act of the drama is closed. It remains yet to establish and perfect our new forms of government, and to prepare the principles, morals, and manners of our citizens for these forms of government after they are established and brought to perfection.”
“If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into all the world would have been unnecessary. The perfect morality of the gospel rests upon the doctrine which, though often controverted has never been refuted: I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God.”
“Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education.”
“The Bible contains more knowledge necessary to man in his present state than any other book in the world.”
“The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effective means of limiting Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools.”
“...This large and expensive stock of drugs will be unnecessary. By...doses of...medicines...multiplying...combining them properly, 20 to 30 articles, aided by the common resources of the lancet, a garden, a kitchen, fresh air, cool water, exercise, will be sufficient to cure all the diseases that are at present under the power of medicine.”
“Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.”
“Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us.”
“Beer is a wholesome liquor.....it abounds with nourishment.”
“I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as satisfied that it is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.”
“Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.”
“A simple democracy is the devil's own government.”
“I have always considered Christianity as the strong ground of republicanism. The spirit is opposed, not only to the splendor, but even to the very forms of monarchy, and many of its precepts have for their objects republican liberty and equality as well as simplicity, integrity, and economy in government. It is only necessary for republicanism to ally itself to the Christian religion to overturn all the corrupted political and religious institutions of the world.”
“While the business of education in Europe consists in lectures upon the ruins of Palmyra and the antiquities of Herculaneum, or in disputes about Hebrew points, Greek particles, or the accent and quantity of the Roman language, the youth of America will be employed in acquiring those branches of knowledge which increase the conveniences of life, lessen human misery, improve our country, promote population, exalt the human understanding, and establish domestic social and political happiness.”
“'Tis done. We have become a nation.”
“Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families. The Amor Patriae love of ones country is both a moral duty and a religious duty. It comprehends not only the love of our neighbors but of millions of our fellow creatures, not only of the present but of future generations. This virtue we find constitutes a part of the first characters of history.”
“Mothers and schools plant the seeds of nearly all the good and evil which exists in the world.”
“We have not only multiplied diseases, but we have made them more fatal.”
“The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.”
“Scandal dies sooner of itself than we could kill it.”
“The art of healing is like an unroofed temple, uncovered at the top and cracked at the foundation.”
“In such a performance you may lay the foundation of national happiness only in religion, not by leaving it doubtful "whether morals can exist without it," but by asserting that without religion morals are the effects of causes as purely physical as pleasant breezes and fruitful seasons.”
“There is but one method of rendering a republican form of government durable, and that is by disseminating the seeds of virtue and knowledge through every part of the state by means of proper places and modes of education and this can be done effectively only by the aid of the legislature.”
“Without Virtue, there can be no liberty.”
Membership
Rush joined the American Philosophical Society in 1772 and became a permanent part of Philadelphia's scientific and medical circle, though his outspoken views made as many enemies as friends. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788. Rush also was a member and one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. In 1794, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Rush was also a founding member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (known today as the Pennsylvania Prison Society).
American Philosophical Society
,
United States
1772 - 1813
Personality
Rush had an able and versatile, but not a fundamentally critical mind. While in Europe studying and touring, the young Pennsylvanian became fluent in French Italian and Spanish.
Interests
foreign languages
Connections
On January 11, 1776, Rush was married to Julia Stockton, who was the eldest daughter of Richard Stockton of Princeton. He had thirteen children, among them James and Richard Rush.