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In his illuminating paper, Revaluation of Benjamin Rush, Adolf Meyer expressed years ago a wish to see published for the benefit of the general reader, a small anthology of Rush's writings. Buried under the dust of oblivion, scattered in inaccessible journals and rare editions, some of his works deserve to be recaptured and reevaluated in light of modern psychiatric thought. Rush, justly acclaimed the 'American Pinel', has more than an antiquarian interest. Such an anthology, according to Meyer, might be 'a real act of justice and a valuable stimulus for progress'.1 This book is the first attempt at compiling such a selection, culled from various sources.
In his writings the 'first American psychiatrist' offers many interesting observations deserving to be known. He was the first to grasp the importance of understanding the interplay of mental and physical factors in illness; yet, he was entirely dualistic in his conceptual thinking. Deeply rooted in the speculative tradition that prevailed in the medical literature of the eighteenth century, Rush believed mental illness might be traced either to somatic or to psychic origins, or, as they were called in those days, 'direct' or 'indirect' causes. That traces of a psychobiological concept are attributable to him, making him a direct forerunner of modern psychiatry, is a well-known fact established by several historians of medical psychology.
Rush was much interested in dreams. In his second lecture on Animal Life he stated that 'dreams act at an early period upon the bodies of children'. He tells of a 'sensible woman' who 'forbad her children to tell their dreams, lest they should contract habits