Benjamin Rush

“ I exclude therefore the intelligent principle of Whytt, the medical mind of Stahl, the healing powers of Cullen, and the vital principal of John Hunter, as much from the body, as I do an intelligent principle from air, fire, and water.
It is no uncommon thing for the simplicity of causes to be lost in the magnitude of their effects. By contemplating the wonderful functions of life we have strangely overlooked the numerous and obscure circumstances which produce it. Thus the humble but true origin of power in the people is often forgotten in the splendour and pride of governments. ”

“ Simple anatomy is a mass of dead matter. It is physiology which infuses life into it. A knowledge of the structure of the human body occupies only the memory. Physiology introduces it to the higher and more noble faculties of the mind. The component parts of the body may be compared to the materials of a house, lying without order in a yard. It is physiology, like a skilful architect, which connects them together, so as to form from them an elegant and useful building. ”

“ In bodies that are predisposed to vice, the stimulus of cheerful, but much more of profane society and conversation, upon the animal spirits, becomes an exciting cause, and, like the stroke of the flint upon the steel, renders the sparks of vice both active and visible. By removing men out of the reach of this exciting cause, they are often reformed, especially if they are confined long enough to produce a sufficient chasm in their habits of vice. ”

“ The moral faculty is to the conscience, what taste is to the judgment, and sensation to perception. It is quick in its operations, and, like the sensitive plant, acts without reflection, while conscience follows with deliberate steps, and measures all her actions, by the unerring square of right and wrong. The moral faculty exercises itself upon the actions of others. ”

“ How wonderful [49] is the action of the mind upon the body! of the body upon the mind! and of the Divine Spirit upon both! What a mystery is the mind of man to itself!——O! Nature!——or, to speak more properly, O! thou God of Nature! in vain do we attempt to scan THY immensity, or to comprehend THY various modes of existence, when a single particle of light, issued from THYSELF, and kindled into intelligence in the bosom of man, thus dazzles and confounds our understandings! ”

“ The earth, in our science, has stood still long enough. Let us at last believe, it revolves round its sun. I admit that the cough, tubercles, and ulcers, after they are formed, increase the danger of a consumption, by becoming new causes of stimulus to the system, but in this they are upon a footing with the water, the membrane, and the bile that have been alluded to, which, though they constitute no part of the diseases that produce them, frequently induce symptoms, and a termination of them, wholly unconnected with the original disease. ”

“ In ascribing a fit of the gout to a cause which is of a sedative nature, the reader will not suppose that I have departed from the simplicity and uniformity of a proposition I have elsewhere delivered, that disease is the effect of stimulus. The abstraction of a natural and habitual impression of any kind, by increasing the force of those which remain, renders the production of morbid and excessive actions in the system as much the effect of preternatural or disproportioned stimulus, as if they were induced by causes that are externally and evidently stimulating. ”

“ As well might we admit an inherent principle of life in animal matter, as a self-determining power in this faculty of the mind. Motives are necessary, not only to constitute its freedom, but its essence; for, without them, there could be no more a will, than there could be vision without light, or hearing without sound. It is true, they are often so obscure as not to be perceived, [452] and they sometimes become insensible from habit; but the same things have been remarked in the operation of stimuli, and yet we do not upon this account deny their agency in producing animal life. ”

“ In all his researches, let him ever remember that there is the same difference between the knowledge of a physician who prescribes for diseases as limited by genera and species, and of one who prescribes under the direction of just principles, that there is between the knowledge we obtain of the nature and extent of the sky, by viewing a few feet of it from the bottom of a well, and viewing from the top of a mountain the whole canopy of heaven. ”

“ In order to preserve the vigour of the moral faculty, it is of the utmost consequence to keep young people as ignorant as possible of those crimes that are generally thought most disgraceful to human nature. Suicide, I believe, is often propagated by means of newspapers. For this reason, I should be glad to see the proceedings of our courts kept from the public eye, when they expose or punish monstrous vices.
The last mechanical method of promoting morality that I shall mention, is to keep sensibility alive, by a familiarity with scenes of distress from poverty and disease. ”

“ It would seem as if the Supreme Being had preserved the moral faculty in man from the ruins of his fall, on purpose to guide him back again to Paradise, and at the same time had constituted the conscience, both in men and fallen spirits, a kind of royalty in his moral empire, on purpose to show his property in all intelligent creatures, and their original resemblance to himself. Perhaps the essence of moral depravity in man consists in a total, but temporary suspension of the power of conscience. ”

“ It would be as reasonable to assert, that the bason of the ocean is immortal, from the greatness of its capacity to hold water; or that we are to live for ever in this world, because we are afraid of dying, as to maintain the immortality of the soul, from the greatness of its capacity for knowledge and happiness, or from its dread of annihilation. ”

“ I shall now briefly enumerate the symptoms of the gout, as they appear in the ligaments, the blood-vessels, the viscera, the nervous system, the alimentary canal, the lymphatics, the skin, and the bones of the human body, and here we shall find that it is an epitome of all disease.
I. The ligaments which connect the bones are the seats, of what is called a legitimate or true gout. They are affected with pain, swelling, and inflammation. The pain is sometimes so acute as to be compared to the gnawing of a dog. We perceive here the sameness of the gout with the rheumatism. ”

“ Agreeably to our last proposition, I proceed to remark, that the action of the brain, the diastole and systole of the heart, the pulsation of the arteries, the contraction of the muscles, the peristaltic motion of the bowels, the absorbing power of the lymphatics, secretion, excretion, hearing, seeing, smelling, taste, and the sense of touch, nay more, thought itself, are all the effects of stimuli acting upon the organs of sense and motion. These stimuli have been divided into external and internal. The external are light, sound, odours, air, heat, exercise, and the pleasures of the senses. ”

“ The love of money sets the whole animal machine in motion. Hearts which are insensible to the stimuli of religion, patriotism, love, and even of the domestic affections, are excited into action by this passion. The city of Philadelphia, between the 10th and 15th of August, 1791, will long be remembered by contemplative men, for having furnished the most extraordinary proofs of the stimulus of the love of money upon the human body. ”

“ I am not so sanguine as to suppose, that it is possible for man to acquire so much perfection from science, religion, liberty, and good government, as to cease to be mortal; but I am fully persuaded, that from the combined action of causes, [52] which operate at once upon the reason, the moral faculty, the passions, the senses, the brain, the nerves, the blood, and the heart, it is possible to produce such a change in his moral character, as shall raise him to a resemblance of angels ”

“ The favourable influence which the progress of science and taste has had upon the morals, can be ascribed to nothing else, but to the perfect union that subsists in nature between the dictates of reason, of taste, and of the moral faculty. Why has the spirit of humanity made such rapid progress for some years past in the courts of Europe? ”

“ I infer that the pulmonary consumption is a disease of the whole system, from its being relieved, or cured, only by remedies which act upon the whole system. This will appear, I hope, hereafter, when we come to treat of the cure of this disease.
Let us now enquire how far the principles I have laid down will apply to the supposed causes of consumption. These causes have been said to be, an abscess in the lungs, hæmoptysis, tubercles, without and with ulcers, catarrh, hereditary diathesis, contagion, and the matter of cutaneous eruptions, or sores repelled, and thrown upon the lungs. ”

“ As I consider virtue and vice to consist in action, and not in opinion, and as this action has its seat in the will, and not in the conscience, I shall confine my inquiries chiefly to the influence of physical causes upon that moral power of the mind, which is connected with volition, although many of these causes act likewise upon the conscience, as I shall show hereafter. The state of the moral faculty is visible in actions, which affect the well-being of society. ”

“ Locke [7] , that some savage nations are totally devoid of the moral faculty, yet it will by no means follow, that this was the original constitution of their minds. The appetite for certain aliments is uniform among all mankind. Where is the nation and the individual, in their primitive state of health, to whom bread is not agreeable? But if we should find savages, or individuals, whose stomachs have been so disordered by intemperance, as to refuse this simple and wholesome article of diet, shall we assert that this was the original constitution of their appetites? ”

“ It is the hinge on which the recovery or death of a consumptive patient frequently turns. I repeat it again, therefore, that patients should be charged over and over when they set off on a journey, as well as when they use exercise of any kind, to avoid fatigue. For this purpose they should begin by travelling only a few miles in a day, and increase the distance of their stages, as they increase their strength. By neglecting this practice, many persons have returned from journies much worse than when they left home, and many have died in taverns, or at the houses of their friends on the road. ”

“ It is no more extraordinary that a fever excited by the bite of a rabid animal should excite a dread of water, than that fevers from other causes should produce aversion from certain aliments, from light, and from sounds of all kinds; nor is it any more a departure from the known laws of stimulants, that the saliva of a mad dog should affect the fauces, than that mercury should affect the salivary glands. ”

“ I did not find a single person above eighty, who had not possessed an active understanding, or active passions. Those different and opposite faculties of the mind, when in excess, happily supply the place of each other. Where they unite their forces, they extinguish the flame of life, before the oil which feeds it is consumed. ”

“ The writers against physiology resemble, in one particular, the writers against luxury. They forget that the functions they know and describe belong to the science of physiology; just as the declaimers against luxury forget that all the conveniences which they enjoy beyond what are possessed in the most simple stage of society, belong to the luxuries of life. [373] The anatomist who describes the circulation of the blood, acts the part of a physiologist, as much as he does, who attempts to explain the functions of the brain. ”

“ Melancholy indeed would have been the issue of all our inquiries, did we take a final leave of the human body in its state of decomposition in the grave. Revelation furnishes us with an elevating, and comfortable assurance that this will not be the case. The precise manner of its re-organization, and the new means of its future existence, are unknown to us. It is sufficient to believe, the event will take place, and that after it, the soul and body of man will be exalted in one respect, to an equality with their Creator. They will be immortal. ”

“ I have said formerly, that the three states of consumption do not observe any regular course in succeeding each other. They are not only complicated in some instances, but they often appear and disappear half a dozen times in the course of the disease, according to the influence of the weather, dress, diet, and the passions upon the system. The great secret, therefore, of treating this disease consists in accommodating all the remedies that have been mentioned to the predominance of any of the three different states of the system, as manifested chiefly by the pulse. ”

“ The influence of sounds of a certain kind in producing excitement, and thereby increasing life, cannot be denied. Fear produces debility, which is a tendency to death. Sound obviates this debility, and thus restores the system to the natural and healthy grade of life. The school-boy and the clown invigorate their feeble and trembling limbs by whistling or singing as they pass by a country church-yard, and the soldier feels his departing life [382] recalled in the onset of a battle by the noise of the fife, and of the poet's “spirit stirring drum.” ”