Benjamin Rush: The Doctor of America’s Revolution

There are many names synonymous with the cognomen of “founding father;” names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. Yet the aforementioned hold something else, perhaps far greater than status immortality, in common: that of the wise counsel and friendship of a little known medical doctor. This doctor was held in such high regard that his death prompted Thomas Jefferson to pen these words to John Adams, “[a]nother of our friends of seventy-six is gone, my dear sir; another of the co-signers of the declaration of independence of our country. A better man […] could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest,1” to which Adams sorrowfully replied, “[a] man of science, letters, taste, sense, philosophy, patriotism, religion, morality, merit, usefulness, taken all together, has never left his equal in America; that I know, in the world. In him is taken away […] a main prop of my life.2” The “benevolent” co-signer of the declaration of independence Jefferson mentioned was indeed a patriot unmatched in America as Adams suggested; his name: Benjamin Rush.

Early Life

Benjamin Rush was born on December 2, 1745, in Byberry Township, near Philadelphia.3 Tragically, Benjamin’s father, John, died six years later, leaving his mother Susanna to tend to the needs of the farm and her seven children.4 As a Quaker in the vein of John Fox, Susanna was determined to see to the children’s education, both academically, and spiritually. In an attempt to provide for her family, Susanna sold the Rush farm and moved into Philadelphia, a feat rarely attempted by single mothers in those days.

In late 1754, Benjamin was sent to live with his as yet relatively unknown uncle, Dr. Samuel Finley, an ordained minister. Finley, who later became the president of Princeton University,5 was far more than a simple caregiver to little Benjamin – he was a full-fledged father figure. It was said that Finley “not only regarded the temporal but the spiritual welfare of those committed to his care.6” That same year, Benjamin entered Dr. Finley’s renowned West Nottingham School in Maryland. Rush excelled in academia, a trait that was to follow him throughout his life, and by 1759, had exhausted all his uncle’s school had to offer.

With no intention of remaining in Maryland, Rush took and successfully passed the Princeton University entrance examination. It was at Princeton that Benjamin, at the tender age fifteen, was introduced to the teachings of Dr. John Redman, a well known medical doctor from Philadelphia. It is of little speculation that Dr. Redman had a lasting affect on Rush’s life, as, upon entrance into Princeton, it was Rush’s outspoken intention to study religion (following in the footsteps of his uncle), but later changed his interest to that of law, and ultimately, settled on Dr. Redman’s profession of medicine. Upon graduation, Rush entered an apprenticeship under Dr. Redman in Philadelphia. During his apprenticeship, Rush participated in the arts of classical surgery and the development of the (then) modern administration of medicine.7 To aid in his understanding of the profession, Rush entered the College of Pennsylvania (which later became the University of Pennsylvania) School of Medicine.8 However, after only two years in Philadelphia, Dr. Redmond urged Rush to leave the colonies and further his education at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Susanna Rush strongly encouraged the move, and Benjamin, then seventeen, wisely heeded their advice and left the comforts of home for the unknown of Scotland in 1766. Rush was granted entrance into the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a medical degree.9

Rush expanded his experience by using university holidays to travel to numerous small towns throughout the region, and while there, practiced medicine. During these travels, Rush found a working knowledge of the native languages to be a necessity, and with his typical zeal toward learning, went about mastering Italian, German, French, and Spanish.10 This zeal of learning ultimately led him to volunteer his own digestive system to “otherwise unknown” exploratory experiments in attempt to add further credence to his doctoral thesis “The Digestion of Food in the Stomach.” 11 After receiving his medical degree, Rush accepted a position in London under the famed Royal Court Physician, Sir John Pringle. While in London, Rush became Joseph Black’s lecture assistant and claimed that Black “has honored me with his particular friendship.12” It was in London that Benjamin, now Dr. Rush, was introduced to Benjamin Franklin, however, little is known about this first of many meetings.13 In an attempt to complete his medical tour of Europe, Dr. Rush traveled to France, where he was introduced to numerous surgical techniques which he would later employ heavily in his practice in America.

In 1769, at the age of twenty-four, Benjamin Rush left Europe with the training, education, and experience of several lifetimes. It is unquestionable that young Dr. Rush did not forget the instruction of his mother while traveling abroad; it was so evident that, upon his return to the colonies, famed physician and congressman Dr. David Ramsay exclaimed, “such was the force of pious example and religious education in the first fifteen years of his life, that though he spent the ensuing nine in Philadelphia, Edinburgh, London, and Paris, exposed to the manifold temptations which are inseparable from great cities, yet he returned at the age of twenty-four to his native country with the same purity of morals he brought with him […] the serene allurements of pleasure, the fascinations of diversions, had no power to divert him from the correct principles and sober orderly habits which had been engrafted on his mind in early youth.14

The Father of American Medicine: Hero, Reformer, and Visionary

In the colonies, especially in the early years of Dr. Rush, most men of science were more men of affairs, who were far more “intimately concerned with the wider interests of people than science,”15 or medicine for that matter. Dr. Rush broke that mold, and that is why, according to the scientific writers of the day, “the nation knew few more eminent figures than Benjamin Rush […] Indeed, if one were obliged to name the one greatest figure in our medical annals, perhaps Rush would be the man.”16

At the age of twenty-four, Dr. Rush became the first professor of chemistry in America when he was appointed Chemistry Chair at the College of Philadelphia.17 He opened his own highly-respected practice in Philadelphia; people of all stations in life were accepted in his practice, beginning with the poor, whom Dr. Rush took special note and care of throughout his life.18 As his practice grew, so to did his renown as a “modern” practitioner who used different styles and systems in achieving health, including the so-called art of “natural medicine.”19 Although his methods were considered progressive amongst his peers in the medical field,20 for certain ailments, Dr. Rush still practiced the somewhat antiquated art of bloodletting—which was later found to be more detrimental to the patient than at first thought. However, his expertise in the field of natural medicine, knowledge largely acquired while in Scotland, proved invaluable, not only to his practice, but to his later political appointments of war.

Although his work as a physician was demanding, Rush’s love of scholarly pursuits continued. His disdain for slavery, which he based primarily on his study of societies and his religious belief that all mankind was created equal, became well-known when, in 1773, he published, “An Address to the British Settlements in America, Upon Slave Keeping.”21 In it, he chastised certain leaders of the day who claimed that the Bible neither condemned nor prohibited slavery; he likened such comments to the justification of a highway robbery because, “part of the money acquired in this manner was appropriated to some religious use.” 22 He further exclaimed that, “a Christian slave is a contradiction in terms.” 23 His strong abolitionist beliefs proved vital in the creation of the first anti-slavery society in the colonies, known as the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, of which he later became president.24 Thereafter, Dr. Rush, along with Benjamin Franklin, wrote the constitution for the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery.25

Although Dr. Rush and his ideas enjoyed much recognition, especially in the north, a catastrophe loomed that would require all of his social and political interests to be trumped only by the necessity of his medical knowledge. In the summer of 1793, the Yellow Fever epidemic began innocently enough, causing discomfort to only a small number of inner-city residents in Philadelphia. However, by June of that year, the number of deaths attributed to yellow fever was in the hundreds. It was at this time that Dr. Rush demanded that all inhabitants of Philadelphia depart for the relative safety of the surrounding countryside with “greatest haste.” 26 Of those numerous thousands that fled the city, many were politicians, as Philadelphia was serving as the interim capitol (because John Adams had brokered a deal with the Virginian federalists to remove the capitol from New York).27 Alexander Hamilton, who was stricken with the fever, left for New York to recover, George Washington, who was serving as president at the time, retired to Mt. Vernon, and even the stoic Thomas Jefferson, who claimed that his duties within government required that he remain in the city, acquiesced to Rush’s warning and fled to the refuge and clear air of Monticello.28 Dr. Rush, however, stayed behind, claiming that “[I have] resolved to stick to my principals, my practice, and my patients, to the last extremity.” 29 He even called upon his own medical students to stay, stating “as for myself, I am determined to stay. I may fall victim to the epidemic, and so may you gentlemen, but I prefer, since I am placed here by Devine Providence, to fall in performing my duty, if such must be the consequence of staying… I will remain, if I remain alone.” 30 The last words of his charge nearly came to fruition, as at one point, Dr. Rush noted that over six-thousand men, women, and children, were in need of a physician, yet only he and two other doctors remained in the city. Yet many of his medical students, whom he liked to call his “little scholars,” 31 heeded his charge and remained with him in the city in an attempt to abate the spread of the dreaded fever; three paid the ultimate price for their selflessness. In a rare showing of emotion, Dr. Rush wrote, “My ingenious pupil, Mr. Washington, fell a victim to his humanity… Mr. Stall sickened in my house… Scarcely had I recovered from the shock of the death of this amiable youth, when I was called to weep for a third pupil, Mr. Alston, who died… the next day.” 32 Perhaps in an attempt to disassociate himself from grief, or simply as the consummate scholar, Dr. Rush researched the plague, and found that his own prior work from 1762 as a medical student was the most thorough.33 However detailed, his paper yielded little as to a cause or cure for the deadly fever.

Dr. Rush again turned to his knowledge of natural systems gained while traveling abroad. Rather than blood-letting, the standard practice of the day for curing the fever, Dr. Rush turned to medical cocktails, a move that many claimed to be the foolish final grasp of a beaten physician. Dr. Rush proved otherwise. Patients who were given the cocktail, consisting of specific roots and herbs, began to improve within a few hours, and most showed complete recovery within a number of days.34 Although the concoction was not perfect, as some, especially the elderly, still succumbed to the fever, it was so successful on such a large portion of the afflicted that it became the common prescription for the fever.

As the fever crisis in Philadelphia subsided, Dr. Rush turned his attention toward another crisis—one which affected many more thousands, and yet was viewed by the upper class as unimportant, primarily because the afflicted class had no voice and were simply known as, the deranged. Many years before, in 1783, Dr. Rush accepted membership with the Pennsylvania Hospital, at which time he was given charge of the mental ward. Now, some 11 years later, Dr. Rush was able to commit the full weight of his academic and histological reasoning upon the subject.

His first reform simply demanded that hospital officials treat those suffering from mental illness as, at a minimum, human. As such, those individuals could handle certain tasks, like grinding corn for the livestock, weaving clothes, and maintaining the local hay barns; in so doing, Dr. Rush gave these people far more than simple tasks—he gave them purpose.35 In a time where the mentally ill and deranged were considered little more than wild animals, and far more dangerous, Dr. Rush’s recommendations were nothing less than revolutionary, and highly controversial. Yet Dr. Rush remained steadfast in his reformation, going even further in demanding that someone of sound mind, on a routine basis, accompany an individual suffering mentally, someone who could walk and talk with them, and by doing so, perhaps bring the lost vessel to his proper mind.36 For the next three decades, Dr. Rush continued to advocate for the rights and interests of the mentally handicapped while dissuading public opinion about these special and important individuals of society.37

Although many claim Dr. Rush was made famous by his heroism and ultimate success during the Yellow Fever epidemic, closer inspection reveals that it was his scholarly tenacity, his heart for humanity, and his complete selflessness in the protection of his fellow man that were the true driving factors. Indeed, it was those seldom noted concerns for the health of the poor and mentally ill that truly supplanted Dr. Benjamin Rush as the father of American medicine.

A Life of Service: Patriot and Friend

Long before the plague of 1793, and shortly after Dr. Rush’s return from Europe, there was growing tension between the colonies and England. Factions arose whose members clamored for recognition at any cost. Without hesitation, Rush joined with the likes of such separatists as John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.

With years of experience in London and much of Europe, Rush knew firsthand what evils monarchial rule could wreck on the natural desire of human independence, ingenuity, and spirit. It was with those thoughts in mind that Rush began to discuss the idea of complete independence from the crown. During one such debate, Rush encouraged Thomas Paine, an English immigrant, who, under the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, was appointed as a columnist at the Pennsylvania Magazine, to write something to “the propriety of preparing our citizens for a perpetual separation of our country from Great Britain.”38 According to Rush, Paine “seized the idea with avidity and immediately began his famous pamphlet in favor on that measure.”39 The document created a binding relationship between Rush and Paine, as often, Paine would compose and read portions of it aloud to Rush at his residence. Rush applauded the logic and persuasiveness of the pamphlet, yet made one dramatic recommendation: they changed the name of the document to Common Sense (rather than Paine’s suggestion of Plain Truth),40 and the rest is of course, history. Numerous newspapers, commentaries, and politicians touted Common Sense as the single most influential document in changing the colonist’s opinion—away from servitude and toward independence. Samuel Adams declared that Common Sense “unquestionably awakened the public mind and led the people loudly to call for the declaration of independence.”41 Rush’s involvement with Common Sense and Thomas Paine led to political scrutiny, perhaps more than he wished. This rise in prominence continued until he was considered a mainstay among the political elite. John and Abigail Adams lived in his home for a time, he dined with George Washington on a regular basis, and strolled the streets of Philadelphia and participated in friendly debates with Patrick Henry, John Jay, and Richard Henry Lee.42

Rush’s desire for independence was so strong, that when the Pennsylvania legislature stood against breaking from Brittan, he personally penned orders rallying citizens to oust any members who voted for fealty to the crown. His work was persuasive enough that the opposing members where indeed ousted; it surprised no one when, only one week later, Rush was elected to replace one such member.43 Later that year, on August 2, 1776, Rush, along with a nine member delegation from Pennsylvania, signed the Declaration of Independence.

His unsurpassed knowledge of the medical sciences led to his immediate appointment as Surgeon General in the Continental Army, where he served on the battlefields of Princeton and Trenton.44 Rush later published, “Directions for Preserving the Health of Soldiers” in which he recalled his experience on the battlefield and the proper methods for treating common war injuries. The work was found to be so insightful that it was used over nearly a century later during the American Civil War.45

Rush’s service to Pennsylvania never ceased as, in 1790, he and James Wilson co-authored the state’s constitution. Seven years later, he was appointed Treasurer of the U.S. Mint, a position that spanned the presidencies of Adams, Jefferson, and Madison—each of whom represented a different political party. Rush, however, declined to claim any party or faction, stating that, “I have alternately been called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am now neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe that all power… will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him.”46

Rush’s political experience was not without intrigue, however, as he recalled, “[a] bit of gossip was passed on at third hand by [John] Adams to the effect Washington had once said ‘He had been a good deal in the world, and seen many bad men, but Dr. Rush was the most black-hearted scoundrel he had ever known.47’” It is important to note that Adams, knowing the type of man that Washington was, only mentioned the comment to expose it as nothing more than fallacious gossip. However, Dr. Rush did not accept the anecdote as unfounded and expressed privately that he was deeply hurt by the comment. Revisiting the incident years later, he wrote, “When Calvin heard that Luther had called him ‘a child of the devil,’ he coolly replied, ‘Luther is a servant of the most high God.’ In answer to the epithet which G. Washington has applied to me, I will as coolly reply, ‘He was the highly favored instrument whose patriotism and name contributed greatly to the establishment of the independence of the United States.48’” That said, one wonders if such sentiments pre-dated the quips and gossip recounted in his letter, as years earlier, while Washington lead the continental army out of valley Forge, Rush and several other members of congress created a society known as the Conway Cabal,49 whose primary goal was the ousting of Washington from command. Only after the Cabal’s failure did Rush lament his involvement in it.50

Conclusion

From humble beginnings, toils, and struggles, Benjamin Rush rose to the forefront of American prominence—academically, medically, and politically. Rush died on April 19th, 1819 of natural causes. It was said that Rush was prominent in the halls of science on both sides of the Atlantic.51 It was further noted that, the event of his death:

Threw a general gloom upon the community, and multitudes followed him to his grave with marks of profound grief and affliction… The loss of no individual of this country, excepting that of Washington or Franklin, has been lamented with more universal and pathetic demonstrations of sorrow… [S]ermons were preached, eulogies pronounced, and processions formed throughout the United States as a just tribute to the memory of the departed sage, patriot, scholar and philanthropist… When the sad tidings reached England and France, the same demonstrations of respect were manifested there… [T]he graves of but few men have been moistened by as many tears from the rich and poor—high and low—as that of Dr. Rush.52

Dr. Charles Meigs summed up Rush’s life by proclaiming, “Dr. Rush looks like an angel of light; his words bear in them… irresistible persuasion and conviction; in fact, to me he seems more than mortal. If ever a human being deserved deification, it is Dr. Rush.”53

Great praise was lauded upon Rush, yet to his own success, he deferred to his father and mother when he stated, “I have acquired and received nothing from the world which I prize so highly as the religious principles I inherited from them; and I possess nothing that I value so much as the innocence and purity of their characters.”54 Surely his parents must be pleased.

Of all the great names associated with the founding of our country, Benjamin Rush is most deserving of a place among them.


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1 Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Albert Bergh, editor (Washington D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903) Vol. XIII p. 246, to John Adams on May 27, 1813.

2 Nathan G. Goodman, Benjamin Rush: Physician and Citizen 1746-1813 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1943) p. 12.

3 David Barton, Benjamin Rush: Signer of the declaration of Independence (Wall Builders Press, 1999) p. 9.

4 Barton, Rush, p.9, “An Overview of the Life of Benjamin Rush.”

5 William Jay Youmans, Pioneers of Science in America: Sketches of Their Lives and Scientific Work (New York: D. Appleton and Company 1896) p. 234

6 “Eulogium on the Late Dr. Rush,” Dr. David Hosack. The Analectic Magazine, Containing Sections from Foreign and Magazines, of such articles as are most Valuable, Curious, or Entertaining, Volume III (Philadelphia: Moses Thomas, 1814) p. 46

7 Edward Currier, The Political Text Book: Containing the Declaration of Independence, with the Lives of the Signers (Massachusetts: Warren Blake, 1841) p. 93

8 Barton, Rush, p.11

9 Isaac Woodbridge Riley, American Philosophy: The Early Schools (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1907) p. 421.

10 Benjamin Rush, A Memorial Containing Travels Through Life Or Sundry Incidents in the Life of Dr. Benjamin Rush (Biddle, Harvard College Press, 1905) p. 23.

11 Willard Thorp, The Lives of Eighteen from Princeton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1946) p. 54.

12 Rush, Benjamin, Letters of Benjamin Rush. Lyman H. Butterfield, ed. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 30, pt. 1. 2 vols. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press for the American Philosophical Society, 1951).

13 Barton, Rush, p. 13

14 David Ramsay, Eulogium Upon Benjamin Rush, M.D. (Philadelphia: Bradford and Innskeep, 1813) p. 129-130.
15 James Gregory Mumford, A Narrative of Medicine in America (J.B. Lippincott Co., 1903) p. 137.

16 Mumford, Narritive, p. 137.

17 Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion (Princeton University Press, 1978), p. 282.

18 U.S. History, Signers of the Declaration of Independence: Benjamin Rush (http://www.ushistory.org/ declaration/signers/rush.htm, accessed March 12, 2008).

19 PBS, Red Gold: the Epic Story of Blood, http://www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/innovators/bio_rush.html, (accessed March 9, 2008).

20 David J. Rothman, Medicine and Western Civilization (Rutgers University, 1996) p. 278.

21 Richard C. Sinopoli, From Many, One: Readings in American Political and Social Thought (Georgetown University Press, 1997) p. 247.

22 Benjamin Rush, An address to the British settlements in America, Upon Slave keeping (Boston: John Boyals, printed for John Langdon, 1773) p. 8.

23 Rush, An address, pp. 16.

24 Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/ rush_benjamin.html (accessed March 12, 2008).

25 PBS, Founding of Pennsylvania Abolition Society, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p249.html, (accessed February 3, 2008).

26 Barton, Rush, p. 81

27 John Joseph Lalor, Cyclopedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States (Chicago: Brand, McNally and Co., 1881) p. 352.

28 Willard Sterne Randall, Thomas Jefferson: A Life (Harper Perennial, 1994) p. 517.

29 Barton, Rush, p. 84, “As a Physician.”

30 Benson L. Lossing, Biographical Sketches of the Signers of the Declaration of American Independence (Philadelphia: Davis, Porter & Co., 1866) p. 100.

31 Barton, Rush, p. 45.

32 Benjamin Rush, Medical Inquires and Observations (Philadelphia: Published by J. Conrad & Co., Printed by T & G. Palmer, 1805) Vol. III, p.227. “An Account of the Bilious Remitting Yellow Fever,” as it Appeared in Philadelphia in the Year of 1773.

33 John Sanderson, Biography of the signers to the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: R.W. Pomeroy, 1823) Vol. IV, p. 266.

34 Jim Murphy, An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 (Clarion Books, 2003) p. 61.

35 Rush, Letters, Vol. II, p. 799.

36 Thomas G. Morton, The History of the Pennsylvania Hospital 1751-1895 (Philadelphia: Times Printing House, 1897) p.163 from the Journal of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, Philadelphia in 1787, Vol. I, p.253.

37 Barton, Rush, p.168, 171.

38 Rush, Letters, Vol. II, p.1008; to James Cheetham on July 17, 1809.

39 Rush, Letters, Vol. II, p.1009.

40 Rush, Letters, Vol. II, p.1008.

41 Samuel Adams, The writings of Samuel Adams, Henry Alonzo Crushing, editor (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1908) Vol. IV, p. 412 to Thomas Paine on November 30, 1802., See also Barton, Rush, p.18.

42 Thorp, Eighteen from Princeton, pp. 60-61.

43 Charles A. Goodrich, Lives of the Signers to the Declaration of Independence (New York: William Reed & Co., 1829) p. 294.

44 Barton, Rush, p. 20.

45 L.H. Butterfield, The Reputation of Benjamin Rush, (Pennsylvania History, January 1950, Vol. XVII,

No. 1) p. 13.

46 Ramsay, Eulogium, p. 103.

47 Rush, Letters, Vol. II, pp. 1207-1208, quoting a letter from John Adams on January 8, 1812.

48 Rush, Letters, Vol. II, pp. 1123-1124, quoting a letter to John Adams on February 12, 1812.

49 Named after the French immigrant and brigadier general Thomas Cabal.

50 Robert Leckie, George Washington's War: The Saga of the American Revolution (Harper Perennial, 1993) p. 445.

51 L. Carroll Judson, The Sages and Heroes of the American Revolution: Including The Signers of the Declaration of Independence (Philadelphia: Moss and Brother, 1854) p. 315.

52 Judson, Sages, p. 314.

53 Rush, Letters, Vol. I, p. lxi.

54 Barton, Rush, p. 15.