Benjamin Rush's educational campaign against hard drinking.

Abstract

More than 200 years ago, during a period of unprecedented production and consumption of distilled alcoholic beverages in the United States, Benjamin Rush launched a health education campaign that warned the public about the hazards of such beverages. He corrected erroneous notions about their presumed beneficial effects and accurately described more than a dozen alcohol-related health problems. Although the temperance movement has had a tumultuous history in the United States, the origin and long-standing tradition of temperance as a health promotion activity needs to be recognized.

Spirits From the Past: Stigma in Historical Medical Literature on Alcohol Addiction and Implications for Modern Practice

“…Prominent 19th century American physician, Benjamin Rush, wrote on "habitual drunkenness" (2)(3)(4) in An Inquiry Into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind (circa 1784) (5). He attributed alcohol addiction to loss of control over drinking and described it as a clinical and moral disease (5).…”

Consequences and Behaviour Problematised: The Establishment of Alcohol Misuse as an Object of Empirical Inquiry in Late 18th- and Early 19th-Century European Medicine

“…The genre of these works has to be remarked on. They were not directed only or even primarily to fellow physicians but to the general public as educational tracts (see Katcher, 1993). there is a variety of inflammatory diseases such as brain-fever, rheumatism, pleurisy, gastritis and hepatitis, along with gout, jaundice, indigestion, dropsy, palpitation, palsy, ulcers and impotency as well as madness and idiotism (Trotter, 1804, pp.…”

“…The genre of these works has to be remarked on. They were not directed only or even primarily to fellow physicians but to the general public as educational tracts (see Katcher, 1993). (Bynum, 1968, p. 162) but yet to have "taken a station in medical writings" (Sutton, 1813, pp.…”

A reply: framing questions about alcohol research

“…Was it not shaped by the social, political and medical context in which it took place? Contextual changes in understanding the effects of alcohol took place throughout the 19th century (Katcher, 1993b). Jellinek and his colleagues carried out their work within the context of their era.…”