US Navy Lieutenant John Rush, firstborn son of American founder Dr. Benjamin Rush, shot and killed his best friend in a duel October 1, 1807. The lieutenant was later admitted to the lunatic ward of Pennsylvania Hospital on February 10, 1810, with a diagnosis of insanity. Dr. Rush later became known as the father of American psychiatry. Later serving as his son's attending physician, the doctor eventually would label the diagnosis as a melancholy derangement, a diagnosis which would probably be recognized in today's psychological taxonomy as schizoaffective disorder bipolar type.
Whatever John Rush's diagnosis, his story is one that provides invaluable insight to the evolution of mental health care in America. A closer look into the case study of John Rush affords the reader a better appreciation of the evolution of parenting and a more intimate understanding of the everyday life of one of America's most consequential founding fathers.
Honor Makes Gray Hairs is essentially a biographical novel chronologically designed to depict the life and times of John Rush who represents the succeeding generation of the founders of the United States. The reader in mind for this work would be anyone interested in American history, psychology, family dynamics, parenting, and the etiology of mental health disorders.
The work should be especially interesting for those who live with family members or other loved ones who struggle with what is still referred to as severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). Most of the stories included in the novel actually happened in the life of John Rush, and those that did not could easily have happened to one degree or another, based on an understanding of the times and personalities involved.
