Name/Title
Medical Inquiries and Observations upon Diseases of the MindDescription
Medical Inquiries and Observations, upon the Diseases of the Mind. By Benjamin Rush, M.D. Philadelphia: Published by Kimber & Richard-son, Merritt, Printer, 1812. 367 pp. A brief excerpt was published in Occupational Therapy 26 (1947): 177-80. Rush succinctly stated the purpose of this book in a 4 Nov. 1812 letter to John Adams, saying that the Inquiries "are in general accommodated to the 'common science of gentlemen of all professions as well as medicine. The subjects of them have hitherto been enveloped in mystery. I have endeavored to bring them down to the level of all the other diseases of the human body, and to show that the mind and body are moved by the same causes and subject to the same laws." Butterfield refers (Letters, 1132, n.6, following the above passage from the Adams letter) to the general consensus that Rush's application of this unified view of mind and body "forms the starting-point of psychiatric science in this country. His treatise at once became the standard American guide in its field and remained without a rival for many decades.”Other Names and Numbers
Other Number
Fox 1812-6. Austin 1669 and 1670 (this copy 1670)Condition
Notes
first edition. See Fox for detailed chapter and contents list.
Austin notes 2 printings of the first edition: A different issue from the preceding (1669). This copy is Austin 1670; Signature H (p. 57-64) has been reset, with extra lines on each page, to allow for the expansion of section VIII of chapter II. Section VIII begins on p. 62, while in the original issue it begins and ends on p. 63.