Eulogium Upon Benjamin Rush, M. D.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1813. Excerpt: ... were prescribed, with great advantage, by several of the physicians of the city. But the use of them was not restricted to the physicians alone; the clergy, the apothecaries, many private citizens, several intelligent women, and two black men prescribed them with great success. Nay more, many persons prescribed them to themselves. It was owing to the almost universal use of these remedies that the mortality of the disease diminished in proportion as the number of persons who were affected by it increased. It is probable that not less than six thousand of the inhabitants of Phila dangerous diseases, are without foundation. His system reprobates all prescriptions, but those that are founded on their suitableness to the present circumstances of the patient. His treatment of the yellow fever in twelve successive years is distinctly laid down in his works, and is not precisely the same in any two years. In a letter dated October 15th, 1803, which the author received from him, Dr. Rush observes: "Our epidemic has been more tractable, than in some former years. I have bled sparingly, purged freely, blistered early, (sometimes on the first day) sweated profusely, with almost universal success. The last remedy was suggested to me by the moisture which I found upon touching the wrists in my first visits to my patients. I have not found it necessary to salivate in a single case. The violent pain and inflammation excited on the arms by the blisters, was a substitute for a sore mouth, and happily saved the stomach and brain by a new and revulsive action on the fourth and fifth days." To those who charged Dr. Rush with using strong mercurial medicines for ordinary complaints, he replied "that he was not in the habit of destroying musquetoes with cannon bullets." M delp...