Benjamin Rush: biography of the pioneer of American psychiatry

He is thus known, "the father of American psychiatry", for his innovative interest in the relationship that the mind exerted on the body. But Benjamin Rush not only stood out in this sense; he was the first professor of chemistry in the United States, as well as an enthusiastic doctor, abolitionist, humanist and one of the signers of the Act of Independence of the United States of America. Almost nothing.

walk us through this biography of benjamin rush, one of the most outstanding of the American eighteenth century.

Brief biography of Benjamin Rush, doctor and revolutionary

Benjamin Rush was born in too brilliant a time to be left out. In the eighteenth century, the Enlightenment lit the fuses of all nations and forever changed the face of the world. The English colonies in America, that is, what would later become the United States, were not far behind in this regard.

In 1740 the Philadelphia Church and Charitable College, which would later become the University of Philadelphia, had seen the light of day. Philadelphia and that at that time was dedicated to the education of the children of the working families of the city. In the 1750s it ran out of funds and Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) himself would take charge of its maintenance. On the other hand, the College of New Jersey (present-day Princeton), founded in 1746, became one of the most famous and respectable institutions of the time.

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Childhood and youth of Benjamin Rush

In this context of cultural boiling, on January 4, 1746, Benjamin Rush was born, the fourth scion of a family of Quaker descent. His father, John Rush, a farmer and weapons manufacturer by profession, renounces the family's Quaker roots and baptizes his offspring in the local Episcopal Church. The parent dies when Benjamin is a six-year-old child, so The upbringing of the boy and his six siblings, as well as his upkeep and support, falls to his mother, Susanna Hall, a liberal-minded Quaker.

Little Rush's intellectual talent is soon evident, as at only fifteen years old he obtains a Bachelor's degree, which he obtains thanks to his studies at the Nottingham Academy in Maryland. The institution is chaired by an uncle of his, the Reverend Samuel Finley, who will play a very relevant role in the education of the adolescent.

medicine as a goal

In Maryland, Rush acquired a humanist education, based on Latin and Greek, philosophy and mathematics, as befitted an enlightened man of his time.

But despite being brilliant in these fields, young Rush's sights are set elsewhere. Always very interested in medicine, he began to study medical science with John Redman., a famous physicist from Philadelphia who teaches him the first rudiments. After studying with him for five years, Rush left in 1766 for Edinburgh, whose university is known throughout Europe for the prestige of its medical studies. A brilliant student, Rush obtained his degree in 1768. He is twenty-two years old and has an extensive career ahead of him.

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social concerns

After completing his studies in Edinburgh, Rush does a medical internship at St. Thomas Hospital in London, where he studies anatomy with the prestigious William Hunter (1718-1783). It is there that he meets Benjamin Franklin, one of the "founding fathers", who in those years he finds himself established in the English capital fighting with Parliament to repeal the hated "Law of Doorbell". Despite being four decades apart, the older Benjamin is genuinely impressed by the older Benjamin. him young, to the point that he finances part of his trip to France, with the aim of improving his skills medical.

The stay in France is not very profitable for Rush, who does not see anything in the French country that attracts his attention. The year is 1769, and what the young graduate ignores is that, barely twenty years later, one of the most important revolutions in history will begin.

That same year, in the summer, Rush settled permanently in Philadelphia. Absolutely impregnated by the humanist ideas that he received during his education, as well as the liberal ideas of his mother, he began to practice professional medicine as a "doctor for the poor", which gives us a clue about his ideals social. During that same year, Rush is appointed professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, making him the first professor of chemistry in the United States.

The humanist and enlightened education that Rush had received is not only evident in his efforts to provide the most disadvantaged in the he needed medical help, but also in his fight against slavery and alcoholism, although there are certain contradictions.

In reference to the latter, and despite the fact that, apparently, Rush was only in favor of limiting the consumption of the drink (and not eradicating it), he has been called "Father of temperance movement”, the anti-alcohol current that began to cross the religious communities of the time. On the other hand, his position on slavery is even more controversial. Although he was a fervent abolitionist all his life and even collaborated in the creation of the first society anti-slavery in the United States, it is known that he bought a slave, William Gruber, and kept him for his entire life. life.

revolution and independence

Another of the issues for which Benjamin Rush is famous is for being part of the group that signed the United States Act of Independence (1776). Indeed, his political position always revolved around a vehement republicanism and the idea that all nations should achieve self-government, which that made him openly oppose the monarchy and any other manifestation that, according to his criteria, undermined this freedom, both individual and social.

In 1775, Benjamin meets Julia Stockton, the very young daughter of Richard Stockton, the lawyer who would also be, along with Franklin and others, one of the "founding fathers." The couple married in 1776; Julia is sixteen and Rush just turned thirty. The following year, Benjamin accompanies his newly released father-in-law and the Reverend John Witherspoon (who, incidentally, had officiated at his wedding), both representatives of the state of New Jersey, to the Continental Congress of 1776, the second of the congresses held during the War of the American independence. In it, the attendees endorsed the declaration of independence; Among the signatories was, as already mentioned, Benjamin Rush.

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The father of American psychiatry

Benjamin Rush published his Medical Inquiries And Observations Upon The Diseases Of The Mind a year before his death, a work that for many experts supposes the first publication on psychiatry in US history. For Samuel Bernard Wortis, the author of the preface to the 1962 edition of the work (see bibliography), it was the first text comprehensible in the country on mental illness, and as such exerted a major influence on the work later.

During his tenure as a physician at the Pennsylvania Hospital (a post he held from 1783 until his death thirty years after him) Rush carefully observed the behavior of the patients around him. position, and noted in detail what were the psychological consequences of brain damage and drug and alcohol use (which, by the way, he reaffirmed in his fight against alcoholism). With his research, Rush pioneered the study of the origin of mental illness and its treatment. The fame of his revolutionary discoveries meant that, in 1787 (and as he stated in a letter to a friend) he was assigned exclusively to the "manic" patients of the hospital.

One of the things that became clear to Benjamin after his activity as his doctor at the hospital was that the mind was much more related to the body than medicine at the time believed. To this end, he promoted an adequate diet for the sick, physical exercise and hydrotherapy treatment to alleviate the symptoms. famous is the tranquilizing chair (something like "calming chair"), a curious artifact designed by Rush in the 1810s that consisted of a robust chair that chained the patients and that had a wooden box on top to introduce the head. The idea was that mental illness was caused by a disturbance in blood flow, and it was assumed that the position in the chair, sustained long enough, it caused the necessary changes in arterial pressure for the symptoms of the disease to subside. they will relieve

Although today it may seem at least a debatable practice, the truth is that Rush's theories were very revolutionary in his time. Especially important for all subsequent psychiatry was his conviction that the mentally ill should be treated adequately, without forgetting their dignity. And although this idea had been around for centuries (an active and healthy life for the mentally ill was promoted in medieval hospitals), it had fallen into somewhat of disuse.

Innovative or outdated?

Given this, it is hard to imagine why some quarters considered Benjamin Rush's practices somewhat outdated. And it is that, although he did a lot for the advancement of the study of psychiatry, the truth is that his other medical methods are rather in question.

Rush was especially known in his day as a passionate advocate of bloodletting as the proper solution to virtually all ills. In 1793 a violent episode of yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia, claiming many lives. With his characteristic vigor, Rush devoted himself body and soul to helping the sick, to whom he purged with very high doses of mercury and the root of an American plant called jalapa, widely used by the ancients Aztecs. The idea was that the patient would have constant diarrhea, supposedly to "eradicate" the disease. Obviously, the only thing this strange method did was dehydrate the patient.

But what Rush earned the most detractors for was his almost obsessive practice of bleeding patients. Bleeding, that is, the removal of blood through an incision in the body, has been a common practice in European medicine since ancient times. However, it seems that Rush took the practice to the extreme, to the point that it is said that he indoctrinated his students to stick almost exclusively to this method. In 1799 Rush was put on trial for the death of a patient from whom he had bled. The doctor was acquitted, but his fame as the "prince of bloodletting" had already gone down in history, almost on the same scale as that of the "father of American psychiatry."