‘Rush’ and ‘Dr. Benjamin Rush’ Review: American Hippocrates Early America’s greatest surgeon was also its leading social reformer. By Stephen Brumwell
https://www.wsj.com/articles/rush-and-dr-benjamin-rush-review-american-hippocrates-1537493843
During the spring of 1813, former presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were united in grief at the death of a mutual friend who had recently persuaded them to forget their bitter rivalries. Like the two celebrated statesmen, the eminent physician and social reformer Benjamin Rush had been a Founding Father, one of 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
But Adams and Jefferson believed that Rush deserved to be remembered for much more than his conspicuous enthusiasm for the cause of American liberty. Jefferson wrote that “a better man, than Rush, could not have left us,” extolling his benevolence, learning, genius and honesty. Adams replied with equal praise: He knew of no one, “living or dead,” who had “done more real good in America.” Writing to Rush’s son, Richard, Adams maintained that as a “benefactor” to his country, the doctor deserved greater recognition than even the celebrated polymath Benjamin Franklin.
Rush: Revolution, Madness, and the Visionary Doctor Who Became a Founding Father
By Stephen Fried
Crown, 597 pages, $30
Dr. Benjamin Rush: The Founding Father Who Healed a Wounded Nation
By Harlow Giles Unger
Da Capo, 300 pages, $28
Today, while Franklin remains an undisputed giant of the Revolutionary generation, the other Benjamin eulogized by Adams and Jefferson is largely forgotten outside the ranks of historians and medical specialists. Now two authors—award-winning journalist Stephen Fried and seasoned historical biographer Harlow Giles Unger—have produced sympathetic and readable reassessments of Rush’s remarkable career, intended to secure what they consider to be his rightful place as a leading Founding Father.
Given their shared objective, Mr. Fried and Mr. Unger inevitably cover similar ground and draw upon common sources. Both rely heavily upon Rush’s prodigious output of publications and his lively and wide-ranging personal correspondence. Their books reveal a dedicated humanitarian with an enduring influence upon American medicine, not least through the estimated 3,000 doctors that he trained. Yet neither author ignores the contradictions in Rush’s character, flaws that mired him in controversy and that help to explain why he still requires rehabilitation.
Born in January 1746, Rush was 5 when his father, a Pennsylvanian farmer and gunsmith, died. Detecting signs of precocious intelligence, his mother sent the youngster to boarding school, where he progressed so swiftly that at age 13 he gained admittance to the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He graduated in a year and was apprenticed in medicine to Philadelphia’s foremost physician, John Redman. CONTINUE AT SITE
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