Research Catalog

Law and medicine in revolutionary America : dissecting the Rush v. Cobbett trial, 1799

Title: Law and medicine in revolutionary America : dissecting the Rush v. Cobbett trial, 1799 / Linda Myrsiades.
Author: Myrsiades, Linda S.
Publication: Bethlehem, PA : Lehigh University Press ; Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, ©2012.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Book/Text	Use in library	KF228.R85 M97 2012	Off-site

Details

Description

xiii, 267 pages : illustrations; 24 cm.

Summary

"Law and Medicine in Revolutionary America: Dissecting the Rush v. Cobbett Trial, 1799 offers the first deep analysis of the most important libel trial in post-revolutionary America and an approach to understanding a much-studied revolutionary figure, Benjamin Rush, in a new light as a legal subject. This libel trial faced off the new nation's most prestigious physician-patriot, Benjamin Rush, against its most popular journalist, William Cobbett, the editor of Porcupine's Gazette. Studied by means of a rare and substantial surviving transcript, the trial features six litigating counsel whose narrative of events and roles provides a unique view of how the revolutionary generation saw itself and the legacy it wished to leave to its progeny. The trial is structured by assaults against medical bleeding and its premier practitioner in yellow fever epidemics of the 1790s in Philadelphia, on the one hand, and castigates the licentiousness of the press in the nation's then-capital city, on the other. As it does so, it exemplifies the much-derided litigiousness of the new nation and the threat of sedition that characterized the development of political parties and the partisan press in late eighteenth-century America"--Provided by publisher.

Series Statement

Studies in eighteenth-century America and the Atlantic world

Uniform Title

Studies in eighteenth-century America and the Atlantic world.

Alternative Title

Dissecting the Rush v. Cobbett trial, 1799

Subject

Genre/Form

History

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-259) and index.

Contents

Benjamin Rush and the culture of medicine -- Malpractice law and Benjamin Rush -- William Cobbett and the scurrilous press -- Libel law and William Cobbett -- Sangrado v. the cloven foot, the trial -- The trial concluded.

ISBN

9781611461022
1611461022
9781611461039
1611461030

LCCN

2012008375
99951239904

OCLC

ocn775416615
775416615
SCSB-1654299

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library