A Moral and Physical Thermometer- 1st American

The First American Printing of Rush's Thermometer

Butterfield 501(2): A Moral and Physical Thermometer: or; A Scale of the Progress of Temperance and Intemperance," first (?) published in the Columbian Magazine, III, 31 (Jan. 1789), and very widely reprinted both here and abroad, in newspapers, periodicals, almanacs, sometimes as part of BR's tract against spirituous liquors, and perhaps in engraved form (as BR promises here, though no examples of the engraving have been found). Lettsom, to whom BR sent a copy about this time, replied on 17 Sep.178, that he had had it reprinted (see the Gentleman's Magazine, LIx, pt. i, 399 [May 1789]); and later (31 July 1793) he wrote BR on stationery which he had had made up with the "Thermometer" printed on the first page (Rush MSs, xxVIII). It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that Lettsom has been credited with the invention of the device by a recent biographer (Abraham,Lettsom, p. 484); but BR's authorship is unquestionable and was acknowledged much earlier by Pettigrew in his Memoirs of Lettsom, I, 160.

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