Benjamin Rush
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Dr. Benjamin Rush (December 24, 1745 – April 19, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States. Rush lived in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and was a physician, writer, educator, and humanitarian. He also was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and attended the Continental Congress. Later in life, he became a professor of medical theory and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite having a wide influence on the development of American government, he is not as widely known as many of his American contemporaries. Rush was also an early opponent of slavery and capital punishment.
Rush was born in Byberry, around 12 miles from Philadelphia. His father died when he was six, and Rush spent most of his early life with his maternal uncle, the Reverend Samuel Finley. He attended Samuel Finley's academy at Nottingham which would later become West Nottingham Academy. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), and then obtained a medical degree at the University of Edinburgh. While in Europe practicing medicine, he learned French, Italian, and Spanish. Returning to the 13 colonies in 1769, Rush opened a medical practice in Philadelphia and became Professor of Chemistry at the College of Philadelphia.
He published the first American textbook on Chemistry, several volumes on medical student education, and wrote influential patriotic essays. He was active in the Sons of Liberty and was elected to attend the provincial conference to send delegates to the Continental Congress. He consulted Thomas Paine on the writing of the profoundly influential pro-independence pamphlet, Common Sense. He was appointed to represent Pennsylvania and signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1777 he became surgeon-general of the middle department of the Continental Army. Conflicts with the Army Medical service, specifically with Dr. William Shippen, led to Rush's resignation.
As General George Washington suffered a series of defeats in the war, Rush campaigned for his removal, as part of the Conway Cabal, losing his trust and ending Rush's war activities. Rush later regretted his actions against Washington. In a letter to John Adams in 1812, Rush wrote, "He [Washington] was the highly favored instrument whose patriotism and name contributed greatly to the establishment of the independence of the United States."
In 1783 he was appointed to the staff of Pennsylvania Hospital and remained a member of the hospital's staff until his death.
He was elected to the Pennsylvania convention which adopted the Federal constitution, and was appointed treasurer of the U.S. Mint, serving from 1797-1813.
He became Professor of medical theory and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania in 1791, though the quality of his medicine was quite primitive even for the time: he advocated bleeding (for almost any illness) long after its practice had declined. He became a social activist, an abolitionist, and was the most well-known physician in America at the time of his death. He was also founder of the private liberal arts college Dickinson College, in Carlisle, PA.
Constitutional Ideas
Rush believed that Americans should enshrine the right to medical freedom in their Constitution, much as the right to freedom of religion is expressly guaranteed in that document.Rush is reported to have argued that "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 privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a Republic ... The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom."
Corps of Discovery
In 1803, Thomas Jefferson sent Meriwether Lewis to Philadelphia to prepare for the Lewis and Clark Expedition under the tutelage of Benjamin Rush, who taught Lewis about frontier illnesses, including how to perform bloodletting. Rush provided the corps with a medical kit that included:- Turkish opium for nervousness,
- emetics to induce vomiting,
- medicinal wine and
- fifty dozen of Dr. Rush's Bilious Pills.
Controversial theories
Rush was an advocate of forced psychiatric treatment. According to historian of psychiatry Thomas Szasz, [link] one of Rush's favorite methods of treatment was to tie a patient to a board and spin it at a rapid speed until all the blood went to the head. He placed his own son in one of his hospitals for 27 years, until he died. Rush also believed that being black was a hereditary illness which he referred to as 'negroidism'.
Contributions to Medicine
Rush was far ahead of his time in the treatment of mental illness. In fact, he is considered the "Father of American Psychiatry", publishing the first textbook on the subject in the United States, Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812). Rush was also an advocate of insane asylums, believing that with proper treatment mental diseases could be cured. An Asylum was even constructed in the area of his birthplace (See Philadelphia State Hospital). The emblem of the American Psychiatric Association bears his portrait. Benjamin Rush was also responsible for the invention of the idea of addiction. Prior to his work, drunkenness was viewed as being sinful, and a matter of choice. Rush introduced the idea that the alcoholic loses control over himself, and identified the properties of alcohol, rather than the alcoholic's choice, as the causal agent. He developed the conception of addiction as a form of medical disease, and finally developed the idea that abstinence is the only cure for addiction.
Besides his contributions to psychiatry, Benjamin Rush wrote a descriptive account of the yellow fever epidemic that struck Philadelphia in 1793 (during which he treated up to 100 patients per day), and what is considered to be the first case report on dengue fever (published in 1789 on a case from 1780).
Rush lived during the Age of Heroic Medicine (1780-1850), and is considered a strong advocate of “heroic medicine”.
During his career, he educated over 3000 medical students, and several of these established Rush Medical College (Chicago) in his honor after his death.
Religious views and vision
He was a Christian, generally deemed Presbyterian[link], and a founder of the Philadelphia Bible society. He was an advocate for Christianty in public life and in particular in education. In line with that he advocated Scriptures as a textbook in the public schools.[link]
That stated he may have had Universalist leanings[link] as the following quote on education seems to imply. It states, "Such is my veneration for every religion that reveals the attributes of the Deity, or a future state of rewards and punishments, that I had rather see the opinions of Confucius or Mahomed inculcated upon our youth, than see them grow up wholly devoid of a system of religious principles. But the religion I mean to recommend in this place, is that of the New Testament."[link]
Sources
Levine, Harry G. The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 1978; 15: pp: 493-506. Also available at: http://www.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/levine/doa.htm
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