Note Type
Historical NoteNote
Politics intruded but did not dominate the early months of 1774, and as late as July he confessed "my profession confines me from many of the duties of a good citizen at the present juncture." He still found time to turn out medical papers and still hoped one of them would gain him admission into the Royal Society. Under the heading "Hints toward the Natural History of Pennsylvania," a subject he deemed likely to appeal to a British audience, he one day scrawled fifteen pages of notes. The outline began routinely with mention of Pennsylvania's location, its climate, and is products. The common diseases among children and adults were also listed. He attributed the colony's prime importance to its mixed breed of men, out of which had come several "illustrious men," among them astronomer David Rittenhouse, Benjamin West, and Jacob Duché, the Anglican clergyman who would shortly serve as chaplain of the First Continental Congress. (Franklin's name was not given.) Rush moved on to discuss the "natural history of the Indians"-their origin ("from the Jews?"), their manners, their diet-perhaps remembering that this had been a subject that fascinated Oliver Goldsmith.
1774. Thomson, scheduled to deliver a paper before the February meeting of the American Philosophical Society, fell ill and Rush was asked to fill the gap. He narrowed down the broad topic of Pennsylvania's natural history to something more manageable-the natural history of medicine among the Indians. The audience gave the talk lavish praise. It is not unlikely that Rush took the praise to heart, for he obviously disallowed the comments of a friendly critic who later reminded him that "a discourse well spoken may captivate the auditors, and yet not bear a critical examination in a closet." During the ensuing months he snatched time from politics and medicine to polish the lecture and encase it with a multitude of erudite footnotes; on July 4 it was published as a small pamphlet which Rush considered his best piece of writing up to that time. Even years later, when it should have been apparent the piece was flawed, he touched it up once more for republication.
The flaws were principally the result of thin material. Rush had never lived among the Indians and knew virtually nothing about them from direct observation. Most of his information came from histories of Canada by Lahontan and Charlevoix and from Edward Hand, a surgeon in the British army who had made a hobby of studying Indian life during several yeas at Fort Pitt. Hand returned to Philadelphia early in 1774 to be mustered out of the army, and Rush pumped him dry of his accumulated lore. He then patched out his fabric by weaving through the footnotes irrelevant material on medicine and medical philosophy and by adding, for a conclusion, a political tract. The merit of the essay-the substitution of the fashionable "noble savage" sentiment for a balanced account of the Indian and his way of life-was lost amid irrelevancies.
The footnotes must have enraged medical colleagues who bothered to read this latest production, and most of them must have done just that; Rush later commented that at the college the essay had "met with the usual fate of my publications" for, of course, it was "full of the new and unpopular doctrines that I taught in my lectures." In one footnote Rush ridiculed the idea that urine, which physicians examine "with the same scrutiny as if it was the book of fate," reveals anything of a patient's disease-which, true enough, it did not in the eighteenth century when the eye rather than chemical analysis judged its quality. "In diseases which are of a mixed nature, or altogether artificial, so many circumstances from diet, drinks, exercise, passions of the mind, and temperature of the air, alter the color, consistency and quality of urine, that the wisest physicians of the present day have agreed that neither the diagnosis or prognosis of diseases can be improved by the nicest observations that can be made upon it." This footnote was deleted in a revised version of the essay.
In another footnote Rush took his colleagues to task for hoodwinking the public. "Physic, like religion, will not suffer by undeceiving the common people," he said. He derided the Boerhaavian doctrines, which, "like the hot regimen in the smallpox, have slain its thousands." We must acknowledge "the imperfections of our science" and overcome our prejudices "in our researches after truth." "It becomes us, therefore, by a modest Skepticism in our opinions, to deprecate the censure and ridicule of posterity. The late successful inquiries into the laws of the nervous system, and the theories we have built upon them, will probably appear like the outlines of a picture, compared with that COMPLETE SYSTEM of physic which remains to be unfolded hereafter, when we arrive at a full knowledge of the structure and economy of the brain." Throughout the footnotes, he worked in opinions on a variety of subjects-a short lecture on temperance; a defense, which disappeared in later editions, of ladies' keeping "up their color with carmine"; and, in a long one on teeth, the view that the French owe the excellence of theirs to sleeping in large woolen caps.
Rush saved some political observations for the conclusion. True, America is racked with disease. But there is still hope, for, he reasoned, it "has advanced but a few paces in luxury and effeminacy." To assure greatness, the common people "must be preserved from the effects of intemperance," not by increasing the price of liquor, for "this is a remedy as unequal to the design as it is destructive to liberty and commerce," but by "the force of severe manners." We must eliminate "the ravages which TEA is making upon the health and populousness of our country." These remarks also disappeared in later editions.
The final pages had nothing to do with Indians. They were lines from a contemplated essay on population. They reveal a striking constant in Rush's thought in the years before and after the Revolution. To judge by the ideas expressed, they could have been written as easily in 1784 a when they were, in 1774:
The population of a country is not to be accomplished by rewards and punishments. And it is happy for America, that the universal prevalence of the Protestant religion, the checks lately given to Negro slavery, the general unwillingness among us to acknowledge the usurpations of primogeniture, the universal practice of inoculation for the smallpox, and the absence of the plague, render the interposition of government for that purpose unnecessary.
These advantages can only be secured to our country by AGRICULTURE. This is the true basis of national health, riches, and populousness. Nations, like individuals, never rise higher than when they are ignorant whither they are tending. It is impossible to tell from history what will be the effects of agriculture, industry, temperance, and commerce, urged on by the competition of colonies united in the same general pursuits, in a country, which for extent, variety of soll, Climate, and number of navigable rivers, has never been equaled in any quarter of the globe. America is the theater where human nature will probably receive her last and principal literary, moral, and political honors.
Despite obvious signs of slipshod work, Rush also sent this essay everywhere. Extracts were published in the Pennsylvania Journal June 22 he Packet July 4. Ramsay reported from Charleston that it had not cared in the local paper but that it was on sale, along with the price neral experiments." A copy drifted to Germany where it was transi published in 1777. But it was to England that Rush turned expecta news of its reception. The Dillys replied that they would do noth It publication until they heard what Franklin and Huck thought of it.
Rush had already sent them copies of the manuscript. Franklin found "the piece had in many respects a great deal of merit, yet as there was some particulars that would be excepted to by the medical people here, many of whom are in the Royal Society, and have great weight there," he and Huck "thought it best the publication should be postponed till after the ballot for your election." Franklin ended saying "you compliment me too highly in supposing a Preface of mine would be of any advantage to it," and without agreeing to write one.
Huck, to whom the pamphlet was dedicated, rifled back stronger criticisms. He found "marks of an hasty performance": an imperfect knowledge of the diseases prevailing among Indians, "inaccuracies, and some seeming contradictions, and in some places the sense is so obscured in flowery language as to be scarcely intelligible." The discourse was further marred-Franklin, understandably, had missed these blemishes-by "that universal frenzy which has overspread America. Quos deus vult perdere prius dementat [Whom God would destroy he first makes mad]. Do you think, let your independence arrive when it may, that your country will ever again be so happy as it has been under the benign protection of this country?" A page of gentler jabs at American politics from this genial but fervent royalist followed. Then as if he had been too harsh, Huck ended on a cheerful note: "I hang up your name at the first meeting of the Royal Society!"
If Franklin and Huck did "hang up" Rush's name at the November meeting of the society, he must have been blackballed. Neither then nor ever did he gain admission. The failure in 1774 must have especially hurt, for the year previous Lettsom, after being recommended among others by Franklin, had been accepted "as a gentleman well qualified to make a useful member of the society."If the rejection disheartened Rush, he kept his feelings private. Friends in neither England nor America heard him complain, so far as is known, of being misused or ill-treated. He reacted to this, the first of a string of defeats in his life, as always: by pushing on with the business of living. Some of the defeats would leave him bitter; none ever broke his spirit.
Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly. By David Freeman Hawke. (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1971. ppNote Type
Historical NoteNote
To Benjamin Rush from Benjamin Franklin
ALS: Yale University Library; letterbook draft: American Philosophical Society
London, July 22. 1774
Dear Sir,
I received your Favour of May 14. with the very ingenious Oration you deliver’d at the Society, for which I thank you. The Bookseller you had likewise sent it to (Mr. Dilly) being desirous of Dr. Huck’s Opinion and mine as to its Publication, we had, after separately reading it, a little Consultation upon it; the Result of which was, that tho’ the Piece had in many Respects a great deal of Merit, yet as there were some Particulars that would be excepted to by the medical People here, many of whom are in the Royal Society and have great Weight there; and as the Society generally is of late grown more difficult in the Admission of new Members, several Candidates being this last Year rejected; and any Criticism to the Disadvantage of your Piece in the Reviews or otherways might prejudice some Votes against you; we thought it best the Publication should be postpon’d till after the Ballot for your Election; it being intended by us to put you up as a Candidate at the next Meeting of the Society, which will be in November, and we were unwilling to hazard your being refus’d, as it would be better not to propose you than to do it without a moral Certainty of Success. We therefore advis’d the Bookseller not to print it till Winter, which he the more readily agreed to, as that is the best Season for publishing. You compliment me too highly in supposing a Preface of mine would be of any Advantage to it.