Benjamin Rush was a very dynamic and controversial figure in the early days of the republic. Born in Byberry (now a section of Philadelphia) on January 4, 1746, he graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1760, and studied for six years in the office of a Philadelphia physician as well as at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, from which he graduated in 1768. He practiced medicine in London and Paris before returning to Philadelphia in 1769.

During the Revolutionary War, Rush served as a surgeon in the Continental Army. In the Philadelphia Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793, he stayed in the city to care for patients ravaged by that plague while many less courageous physicians fled the city. He was the only physician to join those other patriots in pledging their "sacred honor" risking their freedom (nay, their lives) by signing the Declaration of Independence. He was a founder of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, of Dickinson College, and of Franklin College, precursor to Franklin & Marshall.

A prolific author, his Syllabus of a Course in Lectures in Chemistry (1770) was the first chemistry text published in the U.S. Medical Inquiries and Observations upon Diseases of the Mind (1812) was the first American treatise on psychiatry and earned him the title "Father of American Psychiatry." He understood mental illness to be a product of physical causes and he embraced the Frenchman Pineal's humane therapeutic approach: good nutrition, eliminating the use of chains, and seeking to alleviate social deprivation.

Rush was a proponent of many controversial therapies. He was convinced that all diseases were essentially caused by fever. He earned the serious criticism of some of his colleagues for his continued support of blood-letting as a treatment for a variety of diseases. He sued one of his colleagues for defamation of character and, ironically, won that suit on the very day that his old Commander-in-Chief, George Washington, died, probably from excess blood-letting for a throat infection. One of Rush's students was a major player in that episode ("Death of a President." New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 341, No 24, December 9, 1999, pp. 1845-1849).

Rush was also a social reformer. His pamphlets attacked slavery, capital punishment, alcohol, tobacco, and war. He promoted free public schools and the education of women. Later in life he was instrumental in reconciling two old political antagonists, former Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. President Adams appointed Rush as Treasurer of the United Stated Mint in 1797, a position he held until his death in Philadelphia on April 19, 1813.