Benjamin Rush

Born near Philadelphia on December 24, 1745, Benjamin Rush became one of the best-known physicians in early America. He studied at the College of New Jersey, now Princeton, trained in medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and returned to Philadelphia to build a medical practice and teach. He later served as a professor at what became the University of Pennsylvania and was especially influential in medical education.

Rush was deeply involved in public life during the American Revolution. He signed the Declaration of Independence and served as surgeon general of the Continental Army's middle department. Alongside medicine, he wrote and spoke widely about politics, education, public morals, and social reform, including antislavery views and prison reform.

He is also remembered for helping bring attention to mental illness as a subject for medical care, even though some of his treatments reflected the harsh limits of eighteenth-century medicine. Rush died in Philadelphia on April 19, 1813, but his place in American history remains unusual and wide-ranging: doctor, teacher, reformer, and revolutionary all at once.