Like Thomas Jefferson, United States founding father Benjamin Rush was and eighteenth-century Renaissance man. In addition to helping to found a new nation, he was the most prominent early American physician, a writer, educator, humanitarian, and the founder of Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. He signed the Declaration of Independence as well.

He was born in the Township of Byberry, located approximately fourteen miles outside Philadelphia. His father, John Rush, died when Benjamin was only six years old, and he was raised by his mother, Susanna Hall Rush, and his uncle, the Reverend Samuel Finley. For his education, he attended an academy founded by his uncle.

As a pre-teen he enrolled at the College of New Jersey (today Princeton University). After five years he completed a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then undertook study of medicine with Dr. John Redman, in Philadelphia. Impressed with his pupil's abilities, Redman recommended Rush to the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where Rush received a degree in medicine. During his time abroad, he learned French, Italian, and Spanish.

By the time he returned to the American colonies, he was twenty-four, and ready to open his own medical practice, while simultaneously serving as Professor of Chemistry at the College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania). Significantly, he wrote and published the first American textbook on chemistry, while at the same time he was active in the Sons of Liberty and elected to the Continental Congress. Thomas Paine consulted him as the latter was writing Common Sense, a pamphlet that spurred on the cause for independence.

Despite his patriotism and support for independence from England, Rush could be controversial. For example, he vigorously opposed the appointment of George Washington as the commander-in-chief of American military forces. He was also involved in the Conway Cabal, ultimately losing the trust of Washington during the war as well as afterward. Rush later regretted his actions against Washington and wrote to John Adams that Washington's "patriotism and name contributed greatly to the establishment of the independence of the United States." By expressing his own regrets, he helped to encourage Adams and Thomas Jefferson to make peace between one another after many years of estrangement.

Rush remained a physician in Philadelphia, but when Thomas Jefferson was president and organizing the Lewis and Clark Corp of Discovery, he turned to his old friend Rush for assistance. Rush taught Merriweather Lewis the basics of frontier illness and how to bleed a patient. He organized a medical kit for Lewis to take on the journey. Items included were Turkish opium (for nervousness), emetics (to induce vomiting), medicinal wine, and fifty dozen of Dr. Rush's Bilious Pills. These were basically laxatives, so powerful that the corps referred to them as "Rush's Thunderbolts" or "Thunderclappers."

Due to the corps diet of mostly meat, and a distinct lack of clean drinking water, Rush's laxatives were frequently employed. They contained more than fifty percent mercury, and so their content and frequent use has allowed archeologists to be able to trace the corps actual route to the Pacific. Rush was ahead of his time in other ways as well. He was one of the first to raise the cause of slavery abolition. He was also an early supporter of those with mental health issues.

Despite an extremely active life, Rush still had time for family. He married Julia Stockton (daughter of Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence) in 1776. The couple had thirteen children.