Rush, Benjamin

Rush, Benjamin (1745 1813), a Philadelphia physician, enjoyed the close friendship of most of the revolutionary leadership. Surgeon-general in the Continental Army, he was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence. An indefatigable pamphleteer. Rush wrote on disease, insanity, alcoholism and women s intelligence. It was he who persuaded Jefferson to resume his correspondence with John Adams after both men had retired from public life. 

An example of the kind of thinking of 18th century physicians that could lead to such ineffective or positively harmful recommendations is Benjamin Rush s treatment of the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793 (see Powell, 1949). Dr. Rush was one of the most highly respected physicians in North America in the 18th century. 

We may or may not want to say that the rat is addicted to brain stimulation, which produces craving but not tolerance and withdrawal symptoms. Yet the syndrome described in the passage is one that matches a widespread view of the behavior of addicts. Compare, for instance, the rat in front of the aversive grid with a habitual drunkard as described by a nineteenth-century pioneer in the study of alcohol, Benjamin Rush "When strongly urged, by one of his friends, to leave off drinking, he said, Were a keg of rum in one comer of a room, and were... 

Around that same time, the growing problem of alcohol abuse began to be confronted by the pioneers of modern medicine. In the United States, Benjamin Rush published an Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits on the Human Body and Mind. He referred to the intemperate use of distilled spirits as a disease, not a moral failing. He also estimated that at least 4,000 people a year were dying due to alcohol abuse—this at a time when the nation s population was only about 6 million. 

Mind, pioneer American physician Benjamin Rush refers to the intem-... 

Benjamin Rush and other members of the Philadelphia College of Physicians urge Congress to tax alcoholic spirits heavily enough to restrain their intemperate use. ... 

An excellent overview of the changes in medical thinking through the nineteenth century is provided in Lester S. King s Transformations in American Medicine From Benjamin Rush to William Osier (Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991). 

Binger, C. Revolutionary Doctor Benjamin Rush, 1746—1813. New York Norton, 1966. 

A daring entrepreneurial, yet practical, spirit imbued the citizens of the nascent United States of America, and it was exemplified by the precocious young physician John Penington. A student of Dr. Benjamin Rush at the University of Pennsylvania and a contemporary of Dr. Caspar Wistar, Penington completed his... 

FIGURE 239. Dr. Benjamin Rush was educated by Dr. Joseph Black at the University of Edinburgh. In 1769 he was awarded the first Chair in Chemistry in America, at the University of Pennsylvania. Here is the title page for his course syllabus. (From Smith, Chemistry in America). Dr. Rush was a signer of the American Declaration of Independence and worked with co-signer Benjamin Franklin to perfect saltpetre. 

The rigors of his work undoubtedly contributed to the untimely death of Dr. Woodhouse, who Silliman noted never made use of any of the facts revealed by chemistry, to illustrate the character of the Creator as revealed in his works and Dr. Benjamin Rush, his former teacher, simply called an open and rude infidel, in 1809 at the age of 39. 

When, fifteen hundred years later, Pinel advanced similar ideas, he was hailed as a great psychiatric innovator. When, about the same time, Benjamin Rush advocated and practiced therapeutic brutalities far worse than those denounced by this ancient Roman physician, he was hailed as a great physician and humanitarian. Pinel, as the writers of official psychiatric history would have it, launched the First Psychiatric Revolution. Rush, for his part, is canonized as the Father of American Psychiatry. ... 

THE NEW MANUFACTURERS— BENJAMIN RUSH, THE FATHER OF AMERICAN PSYCHIATRY... 

This change in the conceptualization and control of personal conduct, from the religious and moral to the medical and social, is dramatically displayed in the ideas and practices of most of the psychiatrists of the Enlightenment. An outstanding exemplar is Benjamin Rush. His ideas and work will illustrate my propositions about the origin, nature, and uses of the concept of mental illness. 

Benjamin Rush (1746-1813), was Physician General of the Continental Army and served as Professor of Physic and Dean of the Medical School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the undisputed Father of American Psychiatry his portrait adorns the official seal of the American Psychiatric Association. What kind of man was he What were his psychiatric ideas and practices ... 

It is not difficult to see that the first-born son of such a man as Benjamin Rush might have some difficult problems building an identity of his own. This, apparently, was the case. John Rush began to study medicine, dropped it in favor of a naval career, resumed it and got his degree, only to drop it again. On December 11, i8o2, Benjamin Rush made this note in his Commonplace Book This day my son John resumed the study of medicine. So anxious was he to return to my house and business that he said he would supply the place of one of my men servants, and even clean my stable rather than continue to follow a sea life. We are left to wonder why the son had to, or felt that he had to, humiliate himself before his father so much before he could return home and why the elder Rush recorded his son s abjection in his diary. 

John returned home and took his medical degree in 1804. His dissertation was dedicated to his father. Then, instead of accepting an appointment at the Philadelphia General Hospital— where he would have been under his father s shadow—he re-entered the Navy as a sailing master. His naval career lasted less than four years. In 1807, John Rush fought a duel with Benjamin Taylor, one of his closest friends, in which he killed Taylor. Within a year, he attempted suicide. In February, 1810, John was returned to the parental home. His father described him thus Neither the embraces nor tears of his parents, brothers or sisters could prevail upon him to speak to them. His grief and uncombed hair and long beard added to the distress produced by the disease of his mind. .. ... 

Entry in the Commonplace Book for September s, 1810 This day my son John came home from the hospital somewhat better, but not well. He returned six days afterward, much worse. (In The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, p. 294.)... 

---