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“by observation and comparing what we see, with what we read, that we get rid of prejudices.Our Science was oppressed with them. Happily for mankind, they decline rapidly in America…Read, observe & think. Think, observe & read, and you cannot fail of attaining to eminence & usefulness in your profession.” Benjamin Rush. Autograph Letter Signed, Philadelphia, August 2, 1798, to Dr. John McLellan. 2 p.
Inventory# 21295 $10,000.
Complete Transcript:
“Dear Sir/
Accept my thanks for your long, and very interesting letter. I rejoice to find that you did not leave of the Study, when you began the practice of medicine. It is by constantly
adding to the knowledge we acquire at School, that we improve our profession. It is moreover by observation and comparing what we see, with what we read, that we get rid of prejudices. Our Science was oppressed with them. Happily for mankind, they decline rapidly in America. Go on as you have began [sic]. Read, observe & think. Think, observe & read, and you cannot fail of attaining to eminence & usefulness in your profession. I have lately published a 5th brochure of inquiries. It contains an Acc:t of our late Epidemic, and a new theory, and mode of cure of the Gout & Hydrophobia. I suppose the latter disease to be a malignant fever, and recommend for the cure of it, copious bleeding, and all the other remedies for a highly malignant State of fever. I shall mention your name to Mr M McHenry in strong terms for a medical appointment in the military hospitals, but so many applications are now before him from respectable medical gentlemen, that I cannot encourage you to hope my application in your favor will be successful. I thank you for your kind remembrance of my dear Mrs Rush. We continue to be happy in each other, and have great reason to thank God for innumerable family blessings. Our children (Eight in number) are healthy & promising. Our Eldest Son is now a Surgeon on board a Sloop of War. He has been on a cruise for near 3 months. We expect to see him in a few days.----
Adieu. From your affectionate old friend & preceptor
Benj:n Rush
Philadelphia
August 2:d 1798”
Address leaf: “D:r John McCleland [sic] / Physician / Green Castle / Franklin County / Pennsylvania.”
Historical Background:
Dr. John McLellan (1762-1846) practiced general medicine after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) was America’s preeminent physician, medical theorist & teacher of the Early Republic. Graduating from the College of New Jersey [Princeton], he studied medicine in Philadelphia, Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and commenced practice in Philadelphia in 1769. Prior to the Revolution, he became a close associate of several patriot leaders, and it was he who suggested the title for Thomas Paine’s Common Sense. While a member of the Continental Congress in 1776 and 1777, he signed the Declaration of Independence, and later married the daughter of New Jersey’s signatory, Richard Stockton. He served in the Continental Army as surgeon and physician general, but resigned due to disagreements with the director general of the medical department, and controversial statements made on Washington’s leadership. Ever a strong reformer for the social and political health of America, he was a leader in Pennsylvania’s adoption of the U.S. Constitution, and an ardent abolitionist. Adding to his lasting impact in history, he was a founder of the Pennsylvania Hospital and Dickinson College, and held several professorships in the Philadelphia Medical College, the College of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania, during which time he taught nearly 3,000 students. His seminal work on mental disorders (1812), eventually earned him the sobriquet “father of American psychiatry.” Although he was treasurer of the U.S. Mint from 1797-1813, Rush’s greatest national service was probably the leading role he took in orchestrating the reconciliation between his friends Thomas Jefferson and John Adams during the Era of Good Feelings. It was Adams who wrote so movingly of him “No Man dreamed more Sublimely or beautifully, more phylosophically or instructively, more morally or religiously…He almost made a Dreamer of me, Son of Dulness as I was.”
Ironically, Benjamin Rush’s medical practice was governed by one great prejudice, the practice of bloodletting – mentioned in this same letter as treatment for hydrophobia [a symptom of rabies] – a practice he firmly believed in until his death, despite increasing scientific argument against it. “Despite in general being a careful observer, Rush’s system [of diseases and treatments] is largely ‘proven’ through reasoned analogy and is tied closely to his religious beliefs. For Rush, the physician had to be aggressive in his treatment because of the fallen state of nature.” (Griefenstein, 6) This system of medicine being the norm of the time, George Washington’s death – under the care of highly respected physicians, the year after this latter – was certainly hastened by a number of bloodlettings during his illness [believed to have been acute epiglottitis], in which a total of about eighty-two ounces or five pints of blood were drawn in two days. Jefferson, perhaps the leading critic of medical theory and practice of the time, quite accurately believed that observation and thinking were being misconstrued by ‘scientists’ to fit complex, competing, and ever-changing physiological theories. He wrote: “the … presumptuous band of medical tyros let loose upon the world, destroys more of human life in one year, than all the Robinhoods…& Macbeaths do in a century,” (Jefferson to Wistar) and even wrote specifically of Rush: “in his theory of bleeding, and mercury I was ever opposed to my friend…, whom I
greatly loved; but who has done much harm, in his sincerest persuasion that he was preserving life and happiness to all around him.” (Jefferson to Cooper) It was in fact surprisingly out of character for Jefferson, in 1803, to send Meriwther Lewis to Rush to be tutored in medicine for the upcoming Expedition of the Louisiana Territory. More characteristic, was Jefferson’s letter to Dr. Caspar Wistar, in 1807, in which he writes of his grandson leaving for Philadelphia to study the sciences – excepting adamantly – medicine. (Jefferson to Wistar)
Provenance: Dr. John McLellan; by descent to great-grandson William McLellan Pomeroy; his estate, Pottstown, Pennsylvania. References: Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774-1961. Appleton’s Cyclopedia, at http://virtualology.com. Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. John Adams, Autograph Letter Signer, to Richard Rush, Feb. 2, 1814. GLC 2518. Griefenstein, Charles. Benjamin Rush, M.D., at Discovering Lewis & Clark. http://www.lewis-clark.org/content/content-channel.asp?ChannelID=336 American Memory from the Library of Congress. The Thomas Jefferson Papers.Jefferson to Caspar Wistar, June 21, 1807.Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, October 7, 1814. Wallenborn, Dr. White McKenzie. George Washington’s Terminal Illness: A Modern Medical Analysis of the Last Illness and Death of George Washington. http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/articles/wallenborn.html
Large folio, 7.5 x 12.5”. Condition: silk applied to both sides: removable by a conservator.
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