Both Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) had very interesting thoughts regarding health and health care. Both men were original signers of the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson became the 3rd President of the United States.
Thomas Jefferson shared the following thoughts in his ‘Letter to Doctor Caspar Wistar,’ dated June 21, 1807. The letter can be found in the Writings of Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson shared the following thoughts in his ‘Letter to Doctor Caspar Wistar,’ dated June 21, 1807. The letter can be found in the Writings of Thomas Jefferson.
"…One of the most successful physicians I have ever known has assured me that he used more bread pills, drops of colored water, and powders of hickory ashes than of all other medicines put together. I believe that we may safely affirm the presumptuous band of medical tyros let loose upon the world destroys more of human life in one year than all the Robin Hoods & Macheaths do in a century. [Note: Macheath was a fictional character in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and was a chivalrous highwayman.]
"It is in this part of medicine that I wish to see reform… I would wish the young practitioner, especially , to have deeply impressed on his mind the real limits of his art, and that when the state of the patient gets beyond these, his office is to be watchful, but a quiet spectator of the operations of nature, giving them fair play by a well-regulated regimen, and by all the aid the patient can derive from the excitement of good spirits and hope in the patient.
"Having been so often a witness to the salutary efforts which nature makes to re-establish the disordered functions, [the physician] should trust and not hazard the interruption of a machine so complicated and so unknown as the human body, and a subject so sacred as human life."
Dr. Benjamin Rush served as Surgeon General in the Continental army and became a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He made his feelings quite clear regarding what should be included in the Constitution regarding freedom of health care.
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom." (Circa 1787)
I don’t feel that any elaboration is needed regarding the thoughts of these two gentlemen. What strikes me of interest is the date that Dr. Benjamin Rush made his remark.
"It is in this part of medicine that I wish to see reform… I would wish the young practitioner, especially , to have deeply impressed on his mind the real limits of his art, and that when the state of the patient gets beyond these, his office is to be watchful, but a quiet spectator of the operations of nature, giving them fair play by a well-regulated regimen, and by all the aid the patient can derive from the excitement of good spirits and hope in the patient.
"Having been so often a witness to the salutary efforts which nature makes to re-establish the disordered functions, [the physician] should trust and not hazard the interruption of a machine so complicated and so unknown as the human body, and a subject so sacred as human life."
Dr. Benjamin Rush served as Surgeon General in the Continental army and became a professor of chemistry, medical theory, and clinical practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He made his feelings quite clear regarding what should be included in the Constitution regarding freedom of health care.
"Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship to restrict the art of healing to one class of men and deny equal privileges to others; the Constitution of the Republic should make a special privilege for medical freedoms as well as religious freedom." (Circa 1787)
I don’t feel that any elaboration is needed regarding the thoughts of these two gentlemen. What strikes me of interest is the date that Dr. Benjamin Rush made his remark.
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