Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush was born in 1746 in Byberry Township, near Philadelphia, and graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) at fourteen. He studied medicine in Philadelphia and at the University of Edinburgh, and in 1769 became a professor of chemistry in Philadelphia. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence, and he served as a surgeon general in the Continental Army. Rush became one of the best-known physicians in America, teaching thousands of medical students. During the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 he stayed in Philadelphia to treat patients, relying heavily on bloodletting, a treatment that was controversial even then. He campaigned for public schools, education for women and the abolition of slavery, and he helped reconcile the estranged John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. His Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind (1812) was one of the first American books on mental illness. He died in Philadelphia in 1813.

Benjamin Rush is also an author in the library: author page and works.

Faith: Born into a pious Presbyterian family. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica

See also: Signers of the Declaration · Robert Morris · Benjamin Franklin · John Morton · George Clymer · James Wilson