EDITED BY DAGOBERT D. RUNES PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY NEW YORK --l, f Z
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ORIGINAL AT THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, IN PHILADELPHIA.
EDITORS PREFACE U F A GREAT MAN DIES, there is a hole in the world.
Time may do much to fill that hole on the two hundredth anniversary
of the birth of Benjamin Rush, for example, few memorials echoed
his name in this great land. Yet few were as fiery as he, or more
influential, in the vehemence of protest that brought this country
into being and few held the standards of its early learning and
culture as high as he held them. Only Thomas Paine a close friend
could match Benjamin Rush in uncompromising revolutionary spirit.
Rush, incidentally, suggested the title for Paines historic
pamphlet, Common Sense. Together, they ploughed the field for
revolution in Colonial America. And only Benjamin Franklin, in the
young United States, had the humane versatility, the many-sided in
terests, the wide learning, of Benjamin Rush. The interests of Dr.
Rush were varied, but their direction was unwaveringly toward the
betterment of mankind. His scientific and medical investigations,
as well as his social studies and en deavors, were interfused with
deeply religious and ethical feeling. In science and medicine, he
sought along the frontiers of knowl edge. In the quest for social
and political justice, he fought on the side of the weak. Alexander
Hamilton blocked his appointment to the medical faculty of Columbia
College, on the ground of his too radical beliefs. He was
considered by many the great physician of his coun try and time.
Perhaps he was not. Medicine, in his day, was still groping in the
dark.The bacterial nature of diseases was as yet unknown as yet
undiscovered was the application of anaesthesia, the door to
surgery. Yet Benjamin Rush was the first in America to employ oc-
See frontispiece facsimile of Diary. vi EDITORS PREFACE cupational
therapy in the treatment of mental ills, and to en courage
anticipating modern methods analytical conversation with the
patient. There can be no doubt as to the depth of Rushs burning
patriotism, his hatred of the British oppression, of all tyranny.
His signature on the Declaration of Independence was by no means a
merely formal one. It signified not only his peoples fight against
British domination, but his continuing resolve to battle tyranny,
intolerance, and suppression in his native America. Benjamin Rushs
pamphlets, articles, letters, and speeches mount into the
thousands. He pleaded for the abolition of slavery. He urged the
removal of the death penalty. He argued for the amelioration of the
lot of civil prisoners, who, often jailed for no worse crime than
debt, were sent to labor in city-streets chained down with heavy
iron balls. He advocated the establishment of special hospitals for
the insane, then confined in vermin-infested stables, at the mercy
of ignorant and brutal guards. There was no current cause worthy of
support that did not benefit from the warm heart, the outstretched
hand, and the uplifted voice of Benjamin Rush. It was inevitable
that so staunch a fighter should rally around him many friends and
supporters, but also unite against him many who preferred or
profited by the status quo. Conscious of the great opportunities of
the new country, Rush was equally aware of its failings and
insufficiencies. In his nationalpride and his forthright
directness, he became the conscience of the new-born republic. Even
before the birth of the new nation, during the events that led up
to and that marked the American Revolution, this keen conscience of
Benjamin Rush was a goad to his fellows. It must be remembered that
a considerable body of business men and of politicians was at first
entirely opposed to a War for Inde pendence, and during the War
clamored for a policy of appease ment...
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