410 TWING B. WIGGINS 



later, that of theory and practice of medicine in the College of 

 Philadelphia. When the united schools became a part of the 

 University of Pennsylvania, Rush became professor of the 

 institutes of medicine and clinical medicine and later added to 

 this the chair of practice. Rush was a great teacher. He 

 carefully prepared his lectures. He had a voice mellow and 

 pleasing, and above all a personality and manner of delivery 

 that captivated and held his students enslaved. He inspired 

 his hearers to renewed efforts, gave them new ideals, revealed 

 to them the meaning of science and the value of human life. 

 His pupils carried with them throughout the land, new ideas 

 of the dignity of their profession, the joy of achievement and 

 the necessity of constant, hard work to true progress in med- 

 icine . He wrote much and talked ably in favor of the war of the 

 Revolution, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 

 and was surgeon general and physician general of the middle 

 department under Shippen. In medicine. Rush, first the pupil 

 of Cullen, was attracted later by the theories of John Brown, 

 CuUen's pupil, rival and enemy. Brown's theory was that 

 nearly all diseases must be met by stimulating, and as it made 

 alcohol the summum bonum it was an easy, pleasant doctrine. 

 Rush could never completely accept these theories, and indeed 

 finally came to stand for a simplified method, a return to nor- 

 mal conditions, a wholesome hygienic life, air, water, exercise, 

 and vis medicatrix naturse. He added to this the over use of 

 certain drugs, as calomel and jalap, and advocated bleeding. 

 One of the errors universal to his time was to confuse symptoms 

 with diseases. He was unable to escape this, and so built up 

 a system which only his own sound sense and great experience 

 could control. He wrote a truly great history of an epidemic, 

 ''An Account of the Bilious Yellow Fever as it appeared in 

 Philadelphia in 1793," and upon this his fame mainly rests. 

 He also wrote the first systematic treatise upon insanity and 

 its treatment, and was a constant preacher of temperance, 

 far in advance of his day. He was our first great medical 

 teacher. In the years following the Revolution, a new gener- 

 ation with new ideas of medicine took the place of the old 

 leaders, among whom Elihu Hubbard Smith is to be remember- 

 ed, for it was he who established the first American medical 



