Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

In the month of October 1789, he cured a gentleman of a bilious fever by salivating him, and he had found another precedent for a salivation in a fever, in, Dr. Haller's short account of the works of Du. Cramer. He moreover adds, that the propriety of the practice received support, from the accounts which Dr. Clarke had lately given of the successful use of mercury in the dysentery. It has also been asserted in your paper that Dr. Rush did not bleed in the yellow fever of 1793, till after the 10th of September. But any one, who has read the doctor's publication on the disease, must be convinced, that this assertion is equally ungrounded. He bled in the disease as early as the 6th of August. See page 8. Thus, Mr. Fenno, it clearly appears, that Dr. Rush, in the yellow fever of 1793, not only gave mercury as a purge, but to produce a salivation; and that he bled in that fever on the sixth of August, instead of about the 10th of Sept. The credit of introducing in our city these remedies in the cure of the present disease is due to him alone. Attempts have been made to refer their introduction to other gentlemen of the faculty; but these attempts will prove abortive; for they have sprung from a spirit of falsehood and calumny. And to say that this gentleman introduced blood-letting and calomel in the cure of the yellow fever at Philadelphia, is only noticing a small portion of his medical services. By his industry and ingenuity he has nearly effected a total revolution in medicine. His principles appear to be founded on truth; and not only embrace new views of the yellow fever, but of diseases in general. In spite of envy and malice, in spite of European books, and universities, these principles are daily gaining ground. They have been adopted by many eminent physicians in the United States, by some in the West-Indies, and by some in Europe. And when it is considered that they have conducted to a more successful practice, and that they have spread with rapidity in different parts of the world, may we not venture to entertain the opinion, an opinion not improbable, or extravagant, that their adoption will be finally universal?

The following extract, from Dr. Chisholm's work on the malignant pestilential fever which lately prevailed in the West-Indies, will throw light on Dr. Rush's character as a physician and a man, and confirm the belief, that he is entitled to the credit of introducing mercury, in this city in the cure of the yellow fever. "Since my arrival in England, I have had peculiar satisfaction in finding that a treatment nearly similar to the above * had been adopted with great success in the malignant pestilential fever, which so lately prevailed at Philadelphia during the autumn of 1793. Dr. Rush's medical talents and merit are too well known and too generally acknowledged to require the feeble efforts of my pen to extol them. If anything, however, could add to the excellence of this gentleman's character, it must be his benevolent exertion, and unwearied perseverance during the existence of this dreadful calamity, in relieving his helpless and afflicted fellow-citizens, and in pursuing the mercurial mode of treatment, with the weight of prejudice and malignity in opposition to him. Such fortitude is rarely met with in the medical profession; and when it is, it must secure our admiration and respect." Chisholm on the malignant pestilential fever, &c. page 275.