OUR REVOLUTIONARY MEDICAL HERITAGE

[摘要] The aggressive approach that has characterized American medicine was evident even before the American revolution. Dr. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and a doctor whose influence on American medicine lasted for decades, believed that one of the hindrances to the development of medicine had been an "undue reliance upon the powers of nature in curing disease," a thesis he blamed on Hippocrates. . . . Rush was converted to aggressive medicine during a yellow-fever epidemic, when he found that larger and larger quantities of mercury and jalap (purges) appeared to cure the patients. . . . Rush [also] believed that blood-letting was beneficial and urged his disciples to continue bleeding until four-fifths of the body's blood was removed. . . . He was imbued with the idea that even nature itself had been put under control of the American revolution.

[学科分类] 儿科学