Benjamin Rush

Benjamin Rush was a Philadelphia physician, educator, and prolific medical author who became a professor at the College of Philadelphia, later the University of Pennsylvania. A signer of the Declaration of Independence, he also helped establish the Philadelphia Dispensary in 1786 to provide care for the poor. His 1812 *Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind* was the first American textbook devoted to mental illness and helped earn him recognition as a founder of American psychiatry.