Rush: Revolution, Madness and The Visionary Doctor Who Became A Founding Father by Stephen Fried - 2018

Rush: Revolution, Madness and The Visionary Doctor Who Became A Founding Father by Stephen Fried - 2018 

An Autodidactic Corner Selection

(Information from Rush: Revolution, Madness and The Visionary Doctor Who Became A Founding Father)

January 4, 1746 - Philadelphia

April 19, 1813 - Philadelphia


1768 - Receives a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland,  then most prestigious medical school in the world. While there he learned French, Italian and Spanish.  He met Benjamin Franklin who was  very impressed by him and was a great positive influence in his life.

July 4, 1776 - Signed the Declaration of Independence, representing Pennsylvania.  He would late represent Pennsylvania at The Constitutional Convention

1776 to 1881. Surgeon General for the Continental Army.  He introduced numerous reforms designed to promote the health of soldiers. Death rates were often higher on both sides from disease than battle.  He never participated in combat but he was often under fire while doing battle field work.  George Washington praised his courage and they became close friends

1797 to 1813 - Treasurer of the US Mint

Benjamin Rush was a pioneer in greatly improving the treatment of the seriously mentally ill.  When he first began practicing Bedlam like conditions were the norm.  Patients were chained to the ground.  He began programs of good food, pleasant outdoor periods and simple work.  He began talking to patients, trying to see what might have caused their issues.  In his medical practice he treated freely the poor, which was most people.  During a terrible Yellow Fever out break in Philadelphia most doctors left the city.  Rush stayed behind and making no fees, treated many people.  The cause was not yet known and their was no cure but good food and rest saved many.
He wrote many articles on his medical research as well as several books.  As everyone did, he bled his patients.  He was the personal physician of Thomas Jefferson, sometimes George Washington and other prominent persons. He never tried to profit from his connections.  He taught at several medical schools, young doctors were eager to apprentice with him.

Rush was anti-slavery, always voting as an abolitionist.  However he did purchase a fourteen year old boy who was a household servant until he was nineteen at which time Rush signed documents of Manumission.  The suggestion of Fried is that Burns bought him to keep him from being sent to a sugar plantation and freed him as soon as he could take care of himself.  The man became a merchant marine and anytime he was not at sea he stayed at the house of the Burns, a relationship that continued even after Burns passed.

Freid goes into lots of details on the political career of Burns and his time as a Surgeon General.

He married at thirty and was a faithful husband and good father.  Freid talks a lot about Burn's marriage.  As was common, they lost several children early on.


Two of his sons became very successful.  One was troubled by alcoholism and killed his best friend in a duel over their differing interpretations of a play by Shakespeare.  Rush was very opposed to dueling. Fried traces out the impact of this event, which he deeply regretted, on the life of the son and Rush.  He bonded and became very good friends with John Adams who also had a dysfunctional alcoholic son.  They maintained a very lengthy correspondence.

I endorse this book to anyone into the era of the American Revolution.

"Stephen Fried is an award-winning journalist and New York Timesbestselling author who teaches at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Pennsylvania. He is, most recently, the author of the historical biography Appetite for America, and the coauthor, with Congressman Patrick Kennedy, of A Common Struggle. His earlier books include the biography Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia and the investigative books Bitter Pills and The New Rabbi. A two-time winner of the National Magazine Award, Fried has written frequently for Vanity Fair, GQ, The Washington Post Magazine, Rolling Stone, Glamour, and Philadelphia Magazine. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres". From Penguin Random House


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