Benjamin Rush
RUSH was a theorist before he was anything else, and he never apologized for it. He had learned from Cullen that medicine without a system was mere empiricism, and he spent forty years building one: that there was in the end only one fever, that its proximate cause was a convulsive excitement of the blood vessels, and that the physician's task was to reduce that excitement by whatever means came to hand — the lancet first, then calomel and jalap, then the regimen. The system was wrong in most of its particulars and enormously productive in its consequences. It gave Rush a reason to observe everything, to write everything down, and to argue with everyone.
His first public performance as a medical thinker was an oration before the American Philosophical Society in February 1774, on the medicine of the American Indians. It is the first treatise on the subject published in North America, and it is characteristic: Rush approved of Indian practices that resembled his own — bleeding, sweating, purging — and dismissed the rest. But the questions he asked were the right ones. What did a people without physicians do about disease? What did their health say about the diseases of civilization? Rush would return to that second question for the rest of his life.
The teaching came next, and the teaching produced paper. In 1798 Rush printed a syllabus of his course on the institutes and practice of medicine for the students in his lecture room — fewer than fifty copies, most likely, of which almost every survivor is in an institution. It is Rush's system in outline: three parts on pathology, with the cases of women, children, and the Black population treated separately. Beside it the collection sets the textbooks Rush taught from, annotated in his own editions — Sydenham with Rush's notes, Pringle on the diseases of armies with Rush's notes — and the textbook of his master, Cullen's First Lines, in the copy that belonged to George Washington's nephew and heir.
59 objects in Benjamin Rush
[Franklin Imprint]. [BLACKMORE, Richard].Letters between Theophilus and Eugenio...on the Moral Pravity
An Account
Account of the Climate of Pennsylvania and its Influence Upon the Human Body
Account of the Manners of the German Inhabitants of Pennsylvania
An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America upon Slave Keeping
ADS signed by Rush
ALS- Benjamin Rush
American Universal Magazine
Benjamin Rush- An Eulogium Intended to Perpetuate the Memory of David Rittenhouse
Benjamin Rush- Essays Literary, Moral, And Philosophical
Collections for An Essay towards a Materia Medica of The United States
A Comparison Between the Prospects of Advantage in the Unsettled and Unimproved Parts of Pennsylvania/
Consideration on the Injustice and Impolicy of Punishing Murder by Death
Diseases of Minorca
An Enquiry Into the Effects of Public Punishments upon Criminals
Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical
Eulogium in Honor of the Late Dr. William Cullen
[Franklin, Benjamin] Franklin, Dr. (Benjamin) Chess Made Easy. New and Comprehensive Rules for Playing the Game of Chess
Gentleman's Magazine - May 1789
James Monroe/Benjamin Rush
Lectures on the Materia Medica
The Massachusetts Magazine
Medical Inquiries and Observations upon Diseases of the Mind
Medical Inquiries and Observations. To Which Is Added an Appendix, Containing Observations on the Duties of a Physician, and the Methods of Improving Medicine
Memoranda of a Residence at the Court of London
A Moral & Physical Thermometer
A Moral and Physical Thermometer- 1st American
Observations on Diseases of the Army
Observations on the Diseases of the Army
Oration Delivered February 4, 1774, before the American Philosophical Society, Held at Philadelphia. Containing, An Enquiry 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
An oration, delivered before the American Philosophical Society, held in Philadelphia on the 27th of February, 1786
An Oration. Delivered before the American Philosophical Society,
An Oration. Delivered before the American Philosophical Society,
[RUSH, BENJAMIN] THE PHILADELPHIA MEDICAL MUSEUM [VOLUMES ONE TO FIVE AND NEW SERIES VOLUME ONE]
Philadelphia Medical Society Certificate
[COBBETT, William] Porcupine's Works
Report of an Action For A Libel
Rush Hillary
Rush Lecture Ticket
The Rush Light
Rush- an Account of a Negro Physician
Rush- Effect of Spirituous Liquors
Rush- Rejoinder to murder by death
Rush- Thoughts Upon The Amusements and Punishments which are Proper for Schools
[RUSH, BENJAMIN] Sermons to Gentlemen upon Temperance and Exercise
Short Account of Dr. Morgan
Signed Diploma University of PA
Six Introductory Lectures..With Contemporary Notes
Sixteen Introductory Lectures, to Courses of Lectures Upon the Practice of Medicine, With a Syllabus of the Latter
Swieten, Gerard, Baron Van ; Jones, John[et al]
(RUSH, BENJAMIN). SWIETEN, Gerard, L.B. Van- Commentaria in Hermanni Boerhaave
A Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on the Institutes and Practice of Medicine
A Synopsis of Methodical Nosology
Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
Vie de Benjamin Franklin, Ecrits par Lui-Meme
Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin:
