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Benjamin Rush (1745-1813)

Benjamin Rush Benjamin Rush

The “Father of Psychiatry” and signer of the Declaration of Independence was also an active social reformer and Universalist. Born on December 24, 1745 in Byberry, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, Rush was the fourth of seven children born to John and Suzanna Rush. His father, who was a farmer and maker of firearms, died when Benjamin was only five, and the family moved into the city where Suzanna set up a grocery and china shop. She spent some time educating her children, and then at age nine Benjamin went to the Academy in Nottingham, Maryland. He earned some college credit there, and then finished at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton). He received a B.A. in 1760 when he was fifteen, and decided to become a physician. He studied at the Pennsylvania Hospital (where he was later a staff member, 1783-1813), but then went abroad to finish his training. He studied at the University of Edinburgh in 1766, and two years later was granted a doctor’s degree. When he returned home, he took a position at the College of Philadelphia as a chemistry professor. He later published the first textbook on chemistry written by an American, Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Chemistry.

Rush was an active member of the Philosophical Society, and his impulse towards reform surfaced when he published a pamphlet against slavery, and founded the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery. He had become a convert to republicanism in Edinburgh. He met Thomas Paine, and worked with him on the drafts for Common Sense. He attended the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration, and later became a surgeon-general in the Continental Army. During his service Rush became concerned about conditions in the hospitals, and wrote an influential, but controversial report, and he was eventually forced to resign.

In 1775 he returned to visit his old school in New Jersey, and met and fell in love with Julia Stockton. They were married a few months later, and eventually had thirteen children, of whom nine survived infancy and childhood. After the war Rush began to argue for many types of reform. Essays, which were first published in the newspaper and later gathered in book form, advocated for penal reform, the abolition of capital punishment, and a new system of education. He set up the first free medical dispensary in the country. When the new Federal constitution was being written Rush wrote a plan for a Department of Peace to complement the intended Department of War.

Many of his medical accomplishments occurred after Rush became the chaired professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the new University of Pennsylvania. After suggesting some curriculum changes there he argued with the provost, and then left to found a separate school, which is now Dickinson College. In 1793 he was criticized for suggesting that a yellow fever epidemic was caused by poor sanitation, and he also worked tirelessly for its victims. He had long advocated better treatment of the insane, and his book, Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind, was a forerunner of the modern science of psychiatry. He made Philadelphia the center for medical education in the country. He was also a temperance advocate due to his medical concerns for how alcohol affects the body.

Religiously, Rush was active in a variety of churches, after being born a Quaker. In 1781 Elhanan Winchester became a universal Baptist, and had to leave his pulpit to found a new Universalist congregation. They met at the University of Pennsylvania. At first, Rush joined them, and wrote in 1787 that he had embraced universalism. He saw a relationship between universal political and religious equality. Rush was active in the Philadelphia Convention in 1790, but his plan to invite all Christians to gather on a platform of reason and good works was rejected in favor of a more sectarian gathering of Universalists. A number of social reforms were voted for with Rush’s support. His major contribution was to edit and arrange the Articles of Faith and Plan of Government, which became a basis for the Winchester Profession. It was at this time that he met John Murray, and began a correspondence with him. After the convention Rush helped organize the first Sunday School Association in Philadelphia. He believed that the equality of the human race could be found in the creation accounts in the Old Testament. He said that conscience was planted in human beings to show our resemblance to God, and humans have a moral faculty to discern good from evil. The great physician of his day, Rush has sometimes been criticized for his unrelenting support of bloodletting in medical cures, but his overall contributions in medicine, politics and social concerns were monumental for his time. He died on April 19, 1813.