Benjamin Rush was the first American physician to create a medical system that was distinct from European models. He was furthermore critical of shortcomings in European medicine and of aspects of ‘modern’ lifestyle, notably idleness and self-indulgence, which he regarded as detrimental to health. Nevertheless, he was Eurocentric and he believed that European and particularly British medicine was the best foundation for further progress although he also thought the final conquest of disease would come in America rather than in Europe. Rush manifested a deep interest in Native Americans and their medicine but in several key writings he deprecated Indian medical practice and characterized negatively many aspects of what he regarded as native culture. He also doubted that the natives could accommodate themselves to the republican ethos that he hoped would define America.
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References
1.
The body of literature on Rush is quite extensive, perhaps greater than for any other American physician. He was controversial in his own time and has remained so, as is reflected inShryockRH. The medical reputation of Benjamin Rush: contrasts over two centuries. Bulletin of the History of Medicine1971;45:507–52. Regarding Rush's admiration for British medicine and his belief that Americans would perfect it, note Kopperman PE. ‘Venerate the Lancet’: Benjamin Rush's yellow fever therapy in context. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 2004;78:546–7, 569–74. For the number of his students – he also had many apprentices – see ibid., p. 573n118
2.
Much has been written of Rush's attitude toward African-Americans. A good overview of the subject has been published byD'EliaDJ. Dr Benjamin Rush and the Negro. Journal of the History of Ideas1969;30:413–22
3.
Rush wrote of the circumcision in his commonplace book: The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush: His ‘Travels Through Life together with his Commonplace Book for 1789–1813, ed. GeorgeW Comer, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 25, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948: pp.222–3. The wedding is described in Rush's letter to his wife, Philadelphia, 27 June 1787: Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed. LH Butterfield, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 30 Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951: vol: I, 429–32
4.
JohnsonSM. Benjamin Rush and the Pennsylvania German Farmer as Noble Savage. Yearbook of German-American Studies1994;29:54–5
5.
He noted ‘the universal prevalence of the Protestant religion’ as helping to explain why America could advance without a system of ‘rewards and punishments’ being inflicted by a strong government: An Oration, Delivered February 4, 1774, Before the American Philosophical Society, Held at Philadelphia, Containing, An Inquiry into the Natural History of Medicine among the Indians in North-America, and a comparative View of their Diseases and Remedies, with those of civilized Nations. Together with an Appendix, containing Proofs and IllustrationsPhiladelphia: Joseph Crukshank, p. 70
6.
GreeneJC. The American Debate on the Negro's Place in Nature, 1780–1815. Journal of the History of Ideas1954;15:391–2
7.
Quotation from Rush's letter to his wife, above, n. 3. Both Rush and Jefferson were concerned by the issue of how Jews would fit into the republic: PencakW. Jews and anti-semitism in early Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography2002;126:392–93. There are several studies that link Rush's Republicanism to his evangelical perspective. The most thorough treatment is John M Kloos, Jr,A Sense of Deity: The Republican Spirituality of Dr. Benjamin Rush [Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion, 10] Brooklyn, NY:Carlson Publishing Inc., 1991), particularly Chapter 6
8.
Johnson, ‘Benjamin Rush and the Pennsylvania Farmer’, p. 53
9.
JacksonDonald, ed., Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition with Related Documents 1783–1854. Urbana: Univ. Of Illinois Press, 1962, #13 pp. 18–9. Donald D'Elia addresses both the similarity and differences in philosophy, politics and religious attitudes of Rush and Jefferson and asserts that, while they continued to correspond until Rush's death, they came to recognize a widening gap between their respective positions: ‘Jefferson, Rush, and the Limits of Philosophical Friendship’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1973;117:333–43. Jefferson wrote similar letters of introduction to Benjamin Smith Barton on 27 February and Caspar Wistar on 28 February: ibid., #11–12 (pp. 16–8). He asked Barton ‘to prepare for [Lewis] a note of those in the lines of botany, zoology, or of Indian history which you think most worthy of inquiry & observation’. He was even less precise in approaching Wistar, writing ‘I have thought it would be useful to confine [Lewis's] attention to those objects only on which information is most deficient & most desireable: and therefore would thank you to make a note on paper of those which occur to you as most desireable for him to attend to’
10.
11.
The manuscript list of queries regarding the Indians; a copy dated 17 May 1803 is reprinted in Eldon G Chuinard, Only One Man Died: The Medical Aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Glendale: The Arthur H Clark Co, 1979: pp. p149–50. It is quite possible the two documents were prepared together and that the dates noted refer only to when Rush penned the copies
12.
Chuinard reprints and assesses these rules: Only One Man Died, pp. 147–8; a photograph of Rush's copy of the original list is on page 149; a photocopy in Jefferson's hand is printed inWillDW. The medical and surgical practice of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Journal of the History of Medicine1959;14:279. Rush's copy is dated 11 June
13.
Rush to Pickering, [Philadelphia,] 2 May 1791, Letters of Benjamin Rush, ed ButterfieldLH, Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, 30Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1951: vol. I, p. 580. The questions are printed ibid, 580–81. The questionnaire that Rush sent to McGillvray is printed in Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, p. 189
14.
On his career during the Revolution, see, seeCaugheyJW. McGillvray of the Creeks. Norman: Univ. Of Oklahoma Press, 1938: p. 16
15.
16.
17.
The Clark questionnaire is published in Chuinard, Only One Man Died, pp. 418–22 and in Jackson, Letters of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, #101 (pp. 157–61). Rush's views on alcohol abuse are summarized and evaluated in Carl Binger, Revolutionary Doctor: Benjamin Rush, 1746–1813 New York: WW Norton & Co, Inc, 1966: pp. 197–201. Regarding the issue of crime and punishment, seeSullivanRR. The birth of the prison: the case of Benjamin Rush. Eighteenth-Century Studies 1998;31:333–44. A question on whether the Indians punish murder by death is included in both the Lewis and Clark lists. In his essay, Considerations on the Injustice and Impolicy of Punishing Murder by Death. Extracted from the American Museum. With Additions Philadelphia: Matthew Carey, 1792: p. 7, Rush notes that some defend capital punishment for murder on the grounds that ‘the common sense of all nations, and particularly of savages, is in favour of punishing murder by death’; he questions the validity of this argument but adds ‘I am disposed to doubt whether the Indians punish murder by death among their own tribes’
18.
19.
Essays, Literary, Moral & Philosophical. Philadelphia: Thomas and Samuel F Bradford, 1798: p. 257
20.
Ibid.: pp. 262. Rush's characterisations of the Indians ibid, pp. 257–61
21.
Oration, pp. 8–9
22.
The reference to Rush's experiment does not appear in the original version of his Oration nor in the 1789 printing in Medical Inquiries and Observations but rather is reported for the first time in the version that appeared in 1794: ‘An Inquiry into the Natural History of Medicine among the Indians in North-America, and a Comparative View of their Diseases and Remedies with those of Civilized Nations’, Medical Inquiries and Observations, 2nd American edn, I Philadelphia: Thomas Dobson, 1794: p. 21. Questions regarding the Indians' pulse are included in the Lewis and Clark questionnaires but not in those directed to McGillvray and Pickering
23.
Rush cites Hand and Charlevoix in the unpaginated ‘Advertisement’ that prefaces his Oration. In his ‘Account of the Vices’ (p. p257) he writes ‘My information shall be taken from the travels of Charlevoix – [Louis] Hennepen – [Jonathan] Carver – [Bernard] Romans and [John] Bartram, and from conversations with persons of veracity who have resided among [the Indians]’
24.
‘Account of the Vices’, p. 260
25.
Oration: pp. 17–9. In a letter to his future wife, however, he dismissed Indians' ‘conjugal happiness’ as merely ‘natural love’ that was ‘but a small degree above the happiness of brutes’: Johnson, ‘Benjamin Rush and the Pennsylvania German Farmer’, p. 53
26.
27.
Ibid.: pp. 32–3
28.
Ibid.: p. 18
29.
Ibid.: pp. 39, similar argument, pp. 48–9
30.
Ibid.: pp. 49. In 1805 Rush wrote, ‘Fevers, from all their causes, and in all their forms, with the exception of the bilious yellow fever, now yield to medicine’; he added that even yellow fever was treated more successfully in Philadelphia (where Rush's method predominated) than elsewhere: ‘An Inquiry into the Comparative States of Medicine in Philadelphia, between the Years 1760 and 1766, and 1805’, Medical Inquiries and Observations, 2nd edn. Philadelphia: J Conrad & Co, 1805: vol. IV, p. 393
31.
Oration, p. 56
32.
Ibid.: pp. 56, 64–5
33.
Ibid.: p. 24
34.
Ibid.: pp. 22. As Marie E McAllister observes, while there had earlier been contention over the issue of whether syphilis in Europe was of ancient origin or had been introduced by Columbus' men who had contracted it in the West Indies, most 18th-century British writers advocated the Columbian thesis especially after Jean Astruc endorsed it in his treatise on venereal disease that first appeared in English translation in 1737: ‘Stories of the Origin of Syphilis in Eighteenth-Century England: Science, Myth, and Prejudice’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 24 (2000), p. 25
35.
Oration, p. 21
36.
Ibid.: p. 60
37.
Ibid: pp. 28. He used the same wording in a statement that he made to his students in 1797: Kopperman, ‘Venerate the Lancet’, p. 555
38.
Oration, p. 42
39.
Ibid.: p. 46
40.
Kopperman, ‘Venerate the Lancet’, pp. 555–7
41.
Oration, p. 33
42.
Ibid.: p. 8
43.
Ibid.: p. 35
44.
Ibid.: p. 36
45.
Ibid.: pp. 34. The association of Indian medicine with shamanism discredited it in the eyes of many colonists; note Joyce E Chaplin, Subject Matter: Technology, the Body, and Science on the Anglo-American Frontier, 1500–1676Cambridge, Mass., and London: Harvard University Press, 2001: pp. 311–3
46.
Oration, pp. 53–4
47.
‘Observations on the Duties of a Physician’, Medical Inquiries and Observations. Philadelphia: Pritchard & Hall, 1789:, p. p36 [note, in this edition, the essay is appended to the volume and is separately paginated]
48.
Oration, pp. 29–32
49.
Ibid.; pp. 35. Rush also asserted that the Indians did not fear the diseases specified and therefore did not focus on finding remedies
50.
51.
52.
53.
Spring Gardens, 31 August 1774, Pennsylvania Historical Society, ‘MSS. Correspondence of Dr. Benjn. Rush’, vol. 7, #165. Huck may have been upset by Rush's avid Republicanism, for he complained in the letter, ‘There are some Marks, (but probably Dr. Franklin did not see them so much as I did) in your Discourse, of that universal Phrensy which has overspread America … Do you think, let your Independence arrive when it may, that your Country will ever again be so happy, as it has been under the benign Protection of this Country?’ Despite Huck's criticism of the Oration, Rush continued to respect him as a medical authority, at least when it was useful: Kopperman, ‘Venerate the Lancet’, p. 570
54.
London, 22 July 1774, The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed WilliamB Willcox, XXI (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, pp. 247–8. In fact, Rush was not elected, although it is not certain that he was in fact nominated
55.
Kopperman, ‘Venerate the Lancet’ p. 572
56.
A facsimile of Lewis's order appears in Will, ‘Medical and Surgical Practice’, pp. 282. List also in Chuinard, Only One Man Died, pp. 153–4; analysis pp. 154–60
57.
As Chuinard speculates (ibid:, ppp. 155–6), these pills were probably similar in composition to the powerful cathartics that Rush fashioned during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793; that is, 10 grains of calomel and 15 of jalap: Kopperman, ‘Venerate the Lancet’ pp. 542–3
58.
‘Duties of a Physician’ pp. 37–8
59.
Rush added in a postscript ‘Since the above communication, I have prescribed a large quantity of the root of this bitter in powder; and, I am happy to be able to add, with as much satisfaction as any of the common bitters of our shops’: ‘An Account of a new Bitter prepared from the bark of the root Liriodendron Tulipifera’, Transactions of the College of Physicians, of Philadelphia, I. Philadelphia: T Dobson, 1793: pp. 183–5. Rush's ‘Quack Recipe Book’ (Pennsylvania Historical Society, Rush Mss.) includes several treatments with indigenous plants, e.g. pokeweed for itch (p. 4). While Rush took note of such recipes, it is not clear that he made use of them
60.
Oration, pp. 58–60
61.
There were exceptions. In an article promoting the use of pink root(Spigelia marilandica) Alexander Garden reported that it was the Indians who had first discovered its anthelmintic properties: Edmund and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, Dr. Alexander Garden of Charles Town. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1969, pp. 30–1. Still worth reviewing, as one of the more balanced and scholarly reviews of Indian contributions to Euro-American medicine, is William N Fenton, ‘Contacts Between Iroquois Herbalism and Colonial Medicine’, Smithsonian Institution, Annual Report, 1940–41, pp. 503–26. As several historians have noted, some early English settlers in America were willing to credit natives with cures and they sought out their remedies: Bernard W Sheehan, Savagism and Civility: Indians and Englishmen in Colonial Virginia (Cambridge, etc: Cambridge University Press, 1980: pp. 98–9; CA Weslager, Magic Medicines of the Indians (Somerset, NJ: The Middle Atlantic Press, 1973), ch. 2; Chaplin, Subject Matter, pp. 194–8. However, from at least the late 17th century and particularly across the 18th, it became rarer to credit Indians for medical discoveries or at least for correctly assessing the curative powers of medicinal plants: Martha Robinson, ‘New Worlds, New Medicines: Indian Remedies and English Medicine in Early America’, Early American Studies 2005;3:94–110 (Robinson notes Rush's place in the discussion on pp. 107, 109–10); Chaplin, Subject Matter, p. 311. The shift was especially noteworthy among formally educated practitioners of medicine including Rush. Susan Scott Parrish discusses several 18th Century writers who continued to view Indian drugs and treatments favourably: American Curiosity: Cultures of Natural History in the Colonial British Atlantic World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006): pp. 247–58. Among the examples that she cites, however, only Garden had an MD or studied medicine at a British university
62.
Oration, p. 60
63.
A good summary and analysis of Rush's educational program is provided in Hyman Kuritz, ‘Benjamin Rush: HisTheory of Republican Education’, History of Education Quarterly1967;7:432–51
64.
Rush's ‘Paris Journal’ as quoted in Donald J D'Elia, Benjamin Rush: Philosopher of the American Revolution, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society1974;65/5:45 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society). Rush did not claim that Indians were innately inferior to other groups, and indeed he accepted the principle of human nature as a universal: Robert F Berkhofer, Jr, The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1978), p. 42. However, he saw the Indians' bond with nature to be constraining since it prevented them from developing as rapidly as were other groups
