Note Type
Cataloging NoteNote
From Fox: An Enquiry into the Effects of Spirituous Liquors upon the Human Body, and Their Influence upon the Happiness of Society. By Benjamin Rush, M.D. Philadelphia: Printed by Thomas Bradford, [1784?). 11 pp. This undated tract is referred to in a letter of July 1784, though it could have been published earlier. Rush had it reprinted in newspapers many times, including in the Pennsylvania Gazette no. 3029 (18 June
1788), where, according to Butterfield (Letters, 521, n. 1), "it usually appeared about this season each year." It was included in Volume 2 of Medical Inquiries and Observations (see 1793-13), and has been very extensively reprinted and distributed by the American Tract Society and other publishers. It also appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 4 (1943): 325-41. (For Rush's earlier treatment of this topic, see
1782-6.) Comment in Butterfield, Letters, 272-73, n. 1.
1786-5.
Philadelphia: Bradford, [1786].
1787-7. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Dobson, [1787].
1790-5.
(with an addition) Boston: Thomas and Andrews, 1790.
1790-6. 3d ed. with additions. Philadelphia: Bradford, [1790].
1791-3.
3d ed. with additions. Philadelphia: McCulloch, 1791.
1791-4. Edinburgh: Inglis, 1791.
18
Part One
1804-3. (rev. and enigd. ed. with "Drunkards Earble's
Philadelphia: Henkel, 1804.
18044. (with "Effects of Ardent Spirits* title) Palses
"Dobson, (1804]
1805-1. (with additions) New Brunswick (N.J.J: Blauvel, I
1805-2. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Dobson, [18052).
1808-3. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Dobson, 1808.
1809-4. (in collection) Trenton (N.J.J: Fenton, 1809
1810-2. 4th ed. with additions. Philadelphia: Dobson, [18105
1810-3. Edinburgh: Tumbull, 1810.
1811-3. Sth ed. with additions. Philadelphia: Printed for grain
distribution, [1811?).
1811-4. 6th ed. with additions. New York: Davis, 1811.
1811-5. 6th ed. with additions. New York: Printed for b
Subscribers, 1811.
1812-2. (with "Drunkards Emblem* title) New-Marke Nil
Hemkel, [1812?).
1812-3. 6th ed. with additions. New York: Davis, 1812.
1812-4. 7th ed. with additions. Boston: Manning and Loring, In!
1812-5. Middlebury: Vermont Religious Tract Society, 1812
1813-2. 6th ed. with additions. Raleigh: 1813.
1813-3. 7th ed. with additions. New Brunswick [N.J.J: Dar, 1813.
1814-1. 8th ed. with additions. Brookfield [Mass.J: E. Marie.
1814.
1814-2. 8th ed. with additions. Brookfield [Mass.]: B. Moria
1815-1. (with different title) Trenton, N.J.: Sherman, 1813
1816-1. (extracts) Philadelphia: Kite, 1816.
1816-2. 8th ed. Springfield, Mass.: Dickman, 1816,
1917-1. Sthed, with additions. Springfield, Mass.: Dickmas, It
1818-1. 2d ed. (extracts) Philadelphia: Kite, 1818.
1819-1. 8th ed. with additions. Exeter IN. H.J: Richardso, Is
1823-1. (extracts) Philadelphia: Kite, 1823.
1823-2. 8th ed. with additions. Boston: Loring, 1823.
1827-2. (extracts) Philadelphia: Kite, 1821.
1833-1. (extracts) Philadelphia: Tract Association of Fricad, I
1845-1. (New York]: American Tract Society, (18453).
1934-1. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran, 1934.Note Type
Historical NoteNote
With most men a trip of this sort [a 10 day trip to Carlisle PA] would serve only as a diverting interlude. No so with Rush. Out of his ten-day adventure came three spirited essays, each in its way a distinguished piece of work and all the direct result of ideas generated while sauntering through the backcountry.
The first, a follow-up of earlier attacks on the evils of drinking sonater he had returned to Philadelphia. It had occurred to him during the last day of travel that the contrast between German and Scotch-Irish farms owed a good deal to the stillhouse observable on nearly every Scotch-Irish plot. "The quantity of rye destroyed and of whisky drunk in these places is immense," he noted in the diary, "and its effects upon their industry, health, and morals are terrible."
He hoped Dickinson College would introduce harmony, and enlightenment among the backcountry Presbyterians, but the omnipresent stillhouse was a mighty obstacle to that goal. Rush favored drinking; to judge by his own consumption, he found a quart of beer with lunch, a pint and a half of madeira after dinner, to be wholesome and moderate nourishment. He condemned only those liquors "obtained by distillations from fermented substances of any kind."
The trip to Carisle convinced him that ardent spirits lay at the root of all the Scotch-Irishman's troubles-his quarrelsome nature, his stump-filled fields and slovenly farm-houses, even his slack attendance at church. Within a few weeks after the return to Philadelphia, he had published An Enquiry into the Effects of Spiritous Liquors Upon the Human Body, and their Influence upon the Happiness of Society. Out of a fury for what he had seen of the way in which liquor demeaned his beloved Presbyterians, he broadened and sharpened an attack begun a decade earlier into what would become his most famous essay. He refined, enlarged, and revised it the rest of his life, and it remained in print, serving as a principal weapon in the arsenal of temperance workers, nearly a century after his death. Its power as propaganda has obscured its merits as medical literature: historically the essay ranks as the first to detail the physiological effects of alcoholism.
It opened with a vivid account of drinking's immediate men. It made them talkative and bawdy, and it predisposed the quarrel, and fight. Women, sad to say, who were suitably m sober performed "certain immodest actions" when drunk. The of a man in "the paroxysm of drunkenness" combined the ac physician's report and the vividness of a preacher's sermon:
He opens his eyes and closes them again-he gapes and si his limbs-he then coughs and pukes-his voice is hoa rises with difficulty, and staggers to a chair-his eyes re balls of fire-his hands tremble-he loathes the sight of fo calls for a glass of spirits to compose his stomach-now and then he emits a deep-fetched sigh or groan, from a transient twinge of conscience; but he more frequently scolds, and curses everything around him.
Rush moves on to detail the chronic effects of liquor on the body, blending he mild with the mortal. Drinking leads to an obstructed liver, jaundice, Iropsy, diabetes, "rum-buds" on the face, a fetid breath, frequent belchings, epilepsy, gout, and finally madness. Aside from the physical effects, it in vitably carries the drinker, and his family, too, into poverty, misery, crimes, and infamy.
"Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly. By David Freeman Hawke. (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1971. pp 302-304