72 Facts About Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush was a leader in Pennsylvania's ratification of the US Constitution in 1788.

Benjamin Rush was prominent in many reforms, especially in the areas of medicine and education.

Benjamin Rush opposed slavery, advocated free public schools, and sought improved, but patriarchal, education for women, and a more enlightened penal system.

Benjamin Rush argued that illness was the result of imbalances in the body's physical system and was caused by malfunctions in the brain.

Benjamin Rush's approach prepared the way for later medical research, but Rush undertook none of it.

Benjamin Rush promoted public health by advocating clean environment and stressing the importance of personal and military hygiene.

At age eight, Benjamin Rush was sent to live with an aunt and uncle to receive an education.

In 1760, after further studies at the College of New Jersey, which in 1895 became Princeton University, Benjamin Rush graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree at age 14.

From 1761 to 1766, Benjamin Rush apprenticed under Dr John Redman in Philadelphia.

Redman encouraged him to further his studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where Rush studied from 1766 to 1768 and earned an M D degree.

Benjamin Rush became fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish as a result of his studies and European tour.

Benjamin Rush ultimately published the first American textbook on chemistry and several volumes on medical student education and wrote influential patriotic essays.

Benjamin Rush was active in the Sons of Liberty and was elected to attend the provincial conference to send delegates to the Continental Congress.

Thomas Paine consulted Benjamin Rush when writing the profoundly influential pro-independence pamphlet Common Sense.

Benjamin Rush described it as a scene of "pensive and awful silence".

Benjamin Rush said the delegates were called up, one after another, and then filed forward somberly to subscribe to what each thought was their ensuing death warrant.

Benjamin Rush accompanied the Philadelphia militia during the battles after which the British occupied Philadelphia and most of New Jersey.

Nonetheless, Benjamin Rush accepted an appointment as surgeon-general of the middle department of the Continental Army.

However, Benjamin Rush's reporting of Shippen's misappropriation of food and wine supplies intended to comfort hospitalized soldiers, under-reporting of patient deaths, and failure to visit the hospitals under his command, ultimately led to Benjamin Rush's resignation in 1778.

Benjamin Rush criticized General George Washington in two handwritten but unsigned letters while still serving under the surgeon general.

Benjamin Rush's letter relayed General John Sullivan's criticism that forces directly under Washington were undisciplined and mob-like, and contrasted Gates' army as "a well-regulated family".

Ten days later, Benjamin Rush wrote to John Adams relaying complaints inside Washington's army, including about "bad bread, no order, universal disgust" and praising Conway, who had been appointed to inspector general.

Benjamin Rush believed that, while America was free from British rule, the "American Revolution" had yet to finish.

Benjamin Rush was elected to the Pennsylvania convention which adopted the Federal constitution and was appointed treasurer of the United States Mint, serving from 1797 to 1813.

Benjamin Rush was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1788.

Benjamin Rush became a 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 bloodletting for almost any illness, long after its practice had declined.

Benjamin Rush became a social activist and an abolitionist and was the most well-known physician in America at the time of his death.

Benjamin Rush was founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Rush was a founding member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, which greatly influenced the construction of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia.

Benjamin Rush supported Thomas Jefferson for president in 1796 over the eventual winner, John Adams.

In 1803, 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 and the performance of bloodletting.

Benjamin Rush provided the corps with a medical kit that included:.

In 1766, when Benjamin Rush set out for his studies in Edinburgh, he was outraged by the sight of 100 slave ships in Liverpool harbor.

Benjamin Rush argued scientifically that Negroes were not by nature intellectually or morally inferior.

Benjamin Rush deemed public punishments such as putting a person on display in stocks, common at the time, to be counterproductive.

Benjamin Rush authored a 1792 treatise on punishing murder by death in which he made three principal arguments:.

Benjamin Rush led the state of Pennsylvania to establish the first state penitentiary, the Walnut Street Prison, in 1790.

Benjamin Rush campaigned for long-term imprisonment, the denial of liberty, as both the most humane but severe punishment.

Benjamin Rush was instrumental to the founding of the Young Ladies' Academy of Philadelphia, the first chartered women's institution of higher education in Philadelphia.

Benjamin Rush saw little need for training women in metaphysics, logic, mathematics, or advanced science; rather he wanted the emphasis on guiding women toward moral essays, poetry, history, and religious writings.

Benjamin Rush opposed coeducational classrooms and insisted on the need to instruct all youth in the Christian religion.

Benjamin Rush firmly believed in such practices as bloodletting patients, as well as purges using calomel and other toxic substances.

Cobbett accused Benjamin Rush of killing more patients than he had saved.

Benjamin Rush ultimately sued Cobbett for libel, winning a judgment of $5,000 and $3,000 in court costs, which was only partially paid before Cobbett returned to England.

Nonetheless, Benjamin Rush's practice waned as he continued to advocate bloodletting and purges, much to the chagrin of his friend Thomas Jefferson.

Benjamin Rush wrote the first case report on dengue fever.

In reviewing the case of Henry Moss, a slave who lost his dark skin color, Benjamin Rush characterized being black as a hereditary and curable skin disease.

Benjamin Rush wanted to find out why Native Americans were susceptible to certain illnesses and whether they had higher mortality rates as compared to other people.

Benjamin Rush published one of the first descriptions and treatments for psychiatric disorders in American medicine, Medical Inquiries and Observations, Upon the Diseases of the Mind.

Benjamin Rush undertook to classify different forms of mental illness and to theorize as to their causes and possible cures.

Benjamin Rush is sometimes considered a pioneer of occupational therapy particularly as it pertains to the institutionalized.

Furthermore, Benjamin Rush was one of the first people to describe Savant Syndrome.

Benjamin Rush believed that the alcoholic loses control over himself and identified the properties of alcohol, rather than the alcoholic's choice, as the causal agent.

Benjamin Rush developed the conception of alcoholism as a form of medical disease and proposed that alcoholics should be weaned from their addiction via less potent substances.

Benjamin Rush advocated for more humane mental institutions and perpetuated the idea that people with mental illness are people who have an illness, rather than inhuman animals.

The American Psychiatric Association's seal bears an image of Benjamin Rush's purported profile at its center.

Benjamin Rush was the first American to study mental disorder in a systematic manner, and he is considered the father of American Psychiatry.

Benjamin Rush's students included Valentine Seaman, who mapped yellow fever mortality patterns in New York and introduced the smallpox vaccine to the United States in 1799.

Benjamin Rush advocated Christianity in public life and in education and sometimes compared himself to the prophet Jeremiah.

Benjamin Rush regularly attended Christ Church in Philadelphia and counted William White among his closest friends.

Ever the controversialist, Benjamin Rush became involved in internal disputes over the revised Book of Common Prayer and the splitting of the Episcopal Church from the Church of England.

Benjamin Rush dabbled with Presbyterianism, Methodism, and Unitarianism.

Benjamin Rush fought for temperance and both public and Sunday schools.

Benjamin Rush helped found the Bible Society at Philadelphia and promoted the American Sunday School Union.

When many public schools stopped using the Bible as a textbook, Benjamin Rush proposed that the US government require such use, as well as furnish an American Bible to every family at public expense.

Benjamin Rush felt that the United States was the work of God: "I do not believe that the Constitution was the offspring of inspiration, but I am as perfectly satisfied that the Union of the United States in its form and adoption is as much the work of a Divine Providence as any of the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament".

Benjamin Rush helped Richard Allen found the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Dr Benjamin Rush did much for us in public by his influence.

In 1812, Benjamin Rush helped reconcile the friendship of Jefferson and Adams by encouraging the two former presidents to resume writing to each other.

At the site, a small plaque honoring Benjamin Rush has been placed.

In memory of Benjamin Rush MD he died on the 19th of April in the year of our Lord 1813 Aged 68 years Well done good and faithful servant enter thou into the joy of the Lord Mrs Julia Rush consort of Benjamin Rush MD Born March 2,1759 Died July 7,1848 For as in Adam, all die, even so in Christ Shall all be made alive.

The eponymous conservative Benjamin Rush Institute is an associate member of the State Policy Network.