The audience of one

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. 

Up next on the WORLD History Book: a doctor who shaped American independence.

Americans are familiar with the most beloved characters in the story of the Revolution: like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin. 

But one man played an equal role in the founding and managed to stay out of the spotlight.

WORLD’s Emma Eicher has the story.

EMMA EICHER: Historian Joseph Loconte has spent a lot of time studying the American Revolution. And he says there’s a forgotten founder he thinks every American should know.

JOSEPH LOCONTE: He's a chief surgeon in Washington's Continental Army, he signed the Declaration of Independence, he was a pioneer in the field of psychiatry, he was a strong advocate for women's education.

This year, Loconte produced a documentary called Benjamin Rush: The Revolution’s Indispensable Doctor. He says Rush played a pivotal role in American independence and the Revolutionary War.

LOCONTE: Dr. Benjamin Rush is the most important founding father that most Americans have never heard of.

There isn’t a simple answer for why historians have largely left him out of the story. 

Loconte says it could be because many historians are uncomfortable with his apparent Christian faith.

LOCONTE: We don't know what to do with characters who are so obviously religious, who are so deeply committed to the Christian story, as Benjamin Rush was.

Rush was born in 1746 in Pennsylvania. After earning his medical degree in 1768, he began his own practice in Philadelphia. That’s where he would go on to build strong friendships with prominent men.

Rush joined social circles of statesmen and philosophers like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams. He had lunch with George Washington and his wife, and beginning in 1773, Rush was part of regular coffee shop conversations about revolution.

At a book shop, he met a British expatriate who was sympathetic to the American cause.

LOCONTE: The guy turns out to be Thomas Paine.

Rush encouraged Paine to write a pamphlet arguing for independence from Britain.

LOCONTE: Benjamin Rush becomes kind of his muse and gives it its famous title, “Common Sense.”

Rush served in the Continental Army as surgeon general during the war. And he wrote recommendations for keeping soldiers healthy and free from disease.

LOCONTE: It's everything from keeping your tent clear, taking regular baths, cutting your hair short, all of that is pretty radical stuff for the 1770s, and George Washington will put into practice many of Rush’s recommendations. We can only guess at how many men lived to fight another day thanks to Benjamin Rush.

But Rush was incensed by the corruption he saw in army hospitals—like embezzlement and war profiteering—and that caused him to clash with his superiors. Then, unsanitary conditions and supply shortages led him to write an outraged, unsigned letter to Governor Patrick Henry in Virginia. George Washington called it disloyalty, and Rush resigned from service.

Afterwards, Rush channeled his expertise into a second kind of revolutionary undertaking: improving medicine and patient care. When he returned to Philadelphia, he witnessed a disturbing scene at the city hospital.

LOCONTE: He goes into the basement of the Philadelphia hospital, and he sees the mentally ill treated as just these insane, dangerous characters chained in the basement, and it stirs this kind of righteous indignation.

Rush wrote the first textbook for mental disease and published it in 1812. He pioneered theories about how mental illness developed and gave practical solutions. He advocated for exercise, good food, and clean environments as part of humane treatment.

Rush was later celebrated as the Father of American Psychiatry.

LOCONTE: And Rush is really developing the idea that there can be these physical causes for mental illness. It's not just some product of sinful behavior, as many might have thought.

He was also an abolitionist. He later became the president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, which helped free many slaves in the state.

Loconte says Rush’s greatest attributes were resilience and his ability to see the image of God in everyone.

LOCONTE: He's not a compassionate, visionary, sacrificial doctor, physician, patriot in spite of his Christian faith, but because of his Christian faith.

Although Rush’s story is less well-known, Loconte points out the lesson there.

LOCONTE: He is genuinely not seeking glory and acclaim for himself. He's not worried about his legacy. He's concerned about living for the audience of One, meaning his Lord.

Rush spent the rest of his life in and out of politics. Eventually he gained recognition both in America and abroad for his written contributions to the medical field. 

He died in 1813 after contracting a fever, leaving behind his wife, children, and a quiet but enduring legacy.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Eicher.

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