Rush, James, 1786-1869

James Rush was a physician, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1827.

From the description of Cards of admission, 1807-1816, to medical lectures. (American Philosophical Society Library). WorldCat record id: 122380155

Physician, of Philadelphia, Pa.

From the description of Will, 1869. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 70975894

The Rush Family papers includes material from Benjamin Rush, physician, social activist, educator, writer and patriot; his brother Jacob Rush, lawyer, Supreme Court judge, and patriot; and Benjamin’s son James Rush, physician and Treasurer of the United States Mint. These American men were “strong characters, zealous patriots during the stirring period in which they lived, tenacious of their convictions and of the high standard of individual duty which they set for others, and typified in themselves,” (Richards, page 53).

Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush, a physician, social activist, educator, writer, and patriot, was born on December 24, 1745 at Byberry, Pennsylvania, the fourth child of John and Susanna (Hall) Rush. He was educated at the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton University, graduating at age 15; and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he earned his degree of Medical Doctor in June 1768. Prior to traveling to Scotland, Rush studied under Dr. John Redmond of Philadelphia and took classes at the College of Philadelphia, now called the University of Pennsylvania, taught by Dr. William Shippen, Jr. and Dr. John Morgan in 1754. He began practicing medicine when he returned to Philadelphia.

In 1775, Rush met and fell in love with Julia Stockton of Princeton, New Jersey and they were married in January 1776. They had thirteen children, four of whom died in infancy. Benjamin and Julia Rush’s children were: John, Anne Emily (1779-1850), Richard (1780-1859), Susannah (died in infancy), Elizabeth (died in infancy), Mary, James (1786-1869), William (died in infancy), Benjamin (died in infancy), Benjamin (1791-1824), Julia (1792-1860), Samuel (1795-1859), and William.

As a physician, the role for which Rush is best known, he was dedicated and untiring. He founded the Philadelphia Dispensary for the Relief of the Poor and through his “thirty years of service as a senior physician at the Pennsylvania Hospital,” the staff of which he joined in 1783, he instituted many “reforms … in the care of the mentally ill” (Princeton University). He is the author of Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind . He wrote “prolifically on the subject of medicine and medical practice, developing a reputation as a man of literature as well as medicine,” (Dickinson College). His treatments of purging and bloodletting during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793 created great controversy. “In the devastating yellow fever epidemics which afflicted Philadelphia in the 1790s, Rush labored among the sick and dying, morning and night, was felled by the disease himself, and never doubted that his prescriptions of heroic purging and bleeding had saved hundreds of lives,” (Rush, page xvi). However, “it was said of him that his purges were meant for a horse, not a man, and that he had waded through the epidemic in a bath of his patients’ blood. He was even charged with murdering them by his excessive bloodletting,” (Binger, page 227). Soon after the epidemics, Rush sued William Cobbett, also known as “Peter Porcupine” for slander. Although Rush won this suit, many were not convinced and Cobbett continued his attacks on Rush, claiming “to have established mathematically that Rush had killed more patients than he cured,” (Binger, page 247). In the years following the epidemic, Rush’s prominence in the community outweighed the controversy and “in his later years, Benjamin Rush’s reputation and fame spread beyond the parochial confines of his native state and even across the Atlantic.” (Binger, page 284).

Benjamin Rush was also “a social activist, a prominent advocate for the abolition of slavery, an advocate for scientific education for the masses, including women, and for public clinics to treat the poor,” (U.S. History). Furthermore, he favored “universal education and health care; he advocated prison reform, the abolition of … capital punishment, temperance, and better treatment of mental illness” (Dickinson College). He served as a member of American Philosophical Society and as a member of the Sons of Liberty in Philadelphia. He helped organize the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, serving, for a period of time, as president. He also became a member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons. As a Renaissance man, politics did not escape Rush’s notice. In 1776, Rush was elected to and represented Pennsylvania at the Continental Congress and he signed the Declaration of Independence. In 1777, he was appointed surgeon-general of the Continental Army, but quickly resigned because he “became outraged by the conditions he found in army hospitals and, failing to get the remedial action he sought from the director general, Dr. Shippen (his former teacher), he sent a protest to General Washington, accusing Dr. Shippen of maladministration,” (Princeton University). When Congress ruled in favor of Shippen, Rush’s military career ended. Rush supported a federal constitution and in 1787, he voiced his opinions “to advocate the ratification of the federal constitution; his actions let to an appointment to the ratifying convention for the state,” (Dickinson College). He was appointed treasurer of the United States Mint and served from 1797 until his death in 1813.

Education was also important to Rush. Appointed chair of Chemistry at the College of Philadelphia in 1769, Rush became “at the age of twenty-three the first professor of chemistry in America,” (Princeton University). He also served as professor of medical theory and clinical practice at the College of Pennsylvania, and “all told, he taught more than three thousand medical students, who carried his influence to every corner of the growing nation,” (Princeton University). In 1783, he founded Dickinson College, and “serv[ed] as one of the most influential trustees of the College from its founding until his death.” (Dickinson College). According to Carl Binger, “on September 9, 1783, six days after the peace treaty with England went into effect, the Legislature passed an act to establish the College at Carlisle in Cumberland County,” (Binger, page 166) making Dickinson College the first institution of higher education in the United States. He also served as a charter trustee of Franklin College, now Franklin and Marshall College, and as an incorporator of the Young Ladies Academy in Philadelphia.

Benjamin Rush died on April 19, 1813 at age 67. Despite disagreeing with some of Rush’s tactics, Thomas Jefferson, at the time of Rush’s death, wrote in a letter to John Adams, “a better man than Rush could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius or more honest,” (Binger, page 296). John Adams similarly honored Rush saying, “as a man of Science, Letters, Task, Sense, Phylosophy, Patriotism, Religion, Morality, Merit, Usefulness, taken all together, Rush has not left his equal in America, nor that I know of in the world,” (Binger, page 296).

Jacob Rush

Jacob Rush, brother of Benjamin Rush and son of John and Susan Harvey Rush, was born November 24, 1747 in Byberry Township, Philadelphia County. He obtained his education from Francis Allison at a school in New London, Chester County, the Academy at Nottingham, Cecil County, MD, and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), earning the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar on February 7, 1769 and to the Bar in Berks County on May 10, 1769.

Rush was elected as a member of the Assembly from Philadelphia County in 1782 and served until his resignation on March 20, 1784 when he was appointed “by the Supreme Executive Council to the Supreme Bench, in the room of John Evans, deceased,” (Richards, page 56). After the judiciary system was changed by State constitution in 1790, Rush was commissioned President of the Third Circuit on August 17, 1791. According to Richards, Rush was a strong Federalist, believe in “the maintenance of social order by the literal and rigid enforcement of the Act of 1794, against vice and immorality-contemptuously referred to as the Blue Law-passed during his administration,” (Richards, page 66).

The judicial circuits were reorganized in 1806, and Rush was commissioned president of the district of the City and County of Philadelphia. Rush served on the Bench of the District Court of Philadelphia from 1811 until his death.

Rush had married Mary Rench in 1777. They had four daughters who survived both Rush and his wife who died on August 31, 1806. Rush died on January 5, 1820 at the age of 73. It was said that “his uprightness of conduct and unquestionable abilities always secured him the respect and confidence, if not the attachment of his associates, the members of the Bar and the entire community,” (Richards, page 60).

James Rush

James Rush, born March 1, 1786, was the seventh son of Dr. Benjamin Rush. He studied medicine at Princeton University and the University of Edinburgh. He also earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1809. He did not practice medicine regularly and in 1813 was appointed Treasurer of the United States Mint where he served until 1830.

James Rush married Phoebe Anne Ridgeway (1799-1857) a Philadelphia heiress and he inherited her fortune after her death in 1857. In his will, Rush left the bulk of his estate to the Library Company of Philadelphia for the building of the Ridgeway Branch. He was the author of The Philosophy of the Human Voice and “achieved a high reputation as a physician, but later in life secluded himself among his books,” (Scharf, page 1186).

Bibliography:

Binger, Carl, M.D. Revolutionary Doctor: Benjamin Rush, 1746-1813 . New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1996.

Dickinson College. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813). http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/encyclo/r/ed_rushB.html (accessed March 2, 2010).

Princeton University. Campus Companion. http://etcweb.princeton.edu/CampusWWW/Companion/rush_benjamin.html (accessed March 2, 2010).

Richards, Louis. “Honorable Jacob Rush of the Pennsylvania Judiciary,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography . Vol. 39, No. 1 (1915).

Rush, Benjamin. My Dearest Julia: the love letters of Dr. Benjamin Rush to Julia Stockton . New York: Neale Watson Academic Publications, Inc., 1979.

Sharf, J. Thomas and Thompson Westcott. History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884, Volume 2. Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co., 1884.

U.S. History. Biographical Sketch of Benjamin Rush. http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/rush.htm (accessed March 2, 2010).

From the guide to the Rush family papers, 1748-1876, (Library Company of Philadelphia)

James Rush was a physician, and was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1827.

Physician James Rush was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1827.

From the guide to the Cards of admission, 1807-1816, to medical lectures, 1807-1816, (American Philosophical Society)