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Law and medicine in Revolutionary America : dissecting the Rush v. Cobbett trial, 1799 / Linda Myrsiades.

Van Pelt Library KF228.R85 M97 2012
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Myrsiades, Linda S.
Series:
Studies in eighteenth-century America and the Atlantic world
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Rush, Benjamin, 1746-1813--Trials, litigation, etc.
Rush, Benjamin.
Cobbett, William, 1763-1835--Trials, litigation, etc.
Cobbett, William.
Cobbett, William, 1763-1835.
Rush, Benjamin, 1746-1813.
Porcupine's gazette.
Trials (Libel)--Pennsylvania--Philadelphia--History--18th century.
Trials (Libel).
History.
Pennsylvania--Philadelphia.
Physical Description:
xiii, 267 pages, 11 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Place of Publication:
Bethlehem [Pa.] : Lehigh University Press ; Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, [2012]
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 nations most prestigious physician-patriot, Benjamin Rush, against its most popular journalist, William Cobbett, the editor of Porcupines 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, and castigates the licentiousness of the press in the nation's then-capital city. 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. Book jacket.
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.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:
9781611461022
1611461022
9781611461039
1611461030
OCLC:
775416615

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