Benjamin Rush
Dr. Benjamin Rush was a prominent Philadelphia physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence who provided Meriwether Lewis with medical training and a medicine chest for the expedition. Rush prepared a list of health rules and medical questions about Native American practices for Lewis to investigate during the journey. He also supplied the expedition's famously potent laxative pills, known as "Rush's Thunderbolts" or "thunderclappers," which contained mercury and were used as a cure-all throughout the expedition. Archaeological evidence of these mercury pills has helped historians trace the expedition's campsites.
Portrait: Charles Willson Peale, 1783, Public Domain
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Journal Entries (1)
Documents (1)
Cross-Narrator Analyses
Analyses that cite or discuss Benjamin Rush — showing 2 of the most recent matches.
A Fort in Motion: Industry, Diplomacy, and a Rival Company’s Gift
The journal entries for March 7, 1805, offer a revealing pair of perspectives on Fort Mandan during the final weeks before the…
Sickness on the Clearwater: Three Voices from a Hard Descent
The journal entries for September 24, 1805 capture the Corps of Discovery in a moment of acute physical crisis as it descended…
From the Heacock Memorial Archive
1 lewis-clark.org articles that mention Benjamin Rush, preserved here for Robert Heacock’s photography. The articles were written by that site’s contributing authors.
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