1745-1813

American Physician, Politician and Medical Educator

Benjamin Rush was the most prominent American physician of his day. He was the first professor of medical chemistry in America, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a hero of the yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s, and the founder of American psychiatry.

Rush was born on December 24, 1745 (Old Style) or January 4, 1746 (New Style) in Byberry, Pennsylvania. He prepared for college at his maternal uncle Rev. Samuel Finley's academy in West Nottingham, Pennsylvania, then graduated from the College of New Jersey, later called Princeton University, in 1760. For the next six years he was the medical apprentice of John Redman, a prominent Philadelphia physician. He then studied under Alexander Monro secundus (1733-1817), John Gregory, John Hope, Joseph Black (1728-1799), and William Cullen (1710-1790) at Edinburgh, where he received his M.D. in 1768.

Benjamin Rush. (Corbis Corporation. Reproduced with permission...