Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden
History of the Garden
Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a colonial Philadelphia doctor and civic leader, helped found The College of Physicians of Philadelphia in 1787. During his tenure, he urged College Fellows to maintain a medicinal garden as a natural and cooperative way to replenish their medicine chests.
The College finally took his advice in 1937 when it celebrated its 150th anniversary and established the Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden adjacent to the Mütter Museum. This formal medicinal garden, mostly featuring herbs brought over by the colonists, replaced the Sinkler Garden, which had occupied the space since 1914. The Sinkler Garden was an ornamental space with trees, shrubs, herbs, and flowers.
The garden was refurbished in 1956 after it had been neglected during WW2, and the statue Girl with Basin by Edward Fenno Hoffman III was installed (the current statue is a replica of the original, which was stolen in 1964).
In recent years, the garden has been a site for special exhibitions by our youth programs, including Plants as Power, Deadly Doses, and the 2011 award-winning multicultural medicinal plant display in the City Gardens Contest. Some of the plants from these displays still remain in the garden.
The current garden contains more than 70 different kinds of herbs with historical and sometimes contemporary medicinal applications. In addition to plants brought from Europe, the garden now contains many plants native to North America that were used by Native American healers and later adopted by the colonists.
Views from the Garden
Yes, you can take photos of our medicinal plant garden! Tag them on social media . Photos are not permitted in the main Museum galleries.
The White Garden
In the spring of 2019 we began to create a new ornamental garden here at the College. The old plantings were in need of a makeover. We decided to install a White Garden.
This was inspired by the work of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson at in England where, in the 1950’s, they created a masterpiece of White, Green, Grey, and Silver. Their garden was partly inspired by gardeners' curiosity—how can you create interest using shape and texture without color? And also by the fact that they took frequent nighttime walks and were delighted by the way that white flowers glowed in the moonlight.
Our White Garden garden now serves as a stunning backdrop to many of the weddings held here at the College, as well as a beautiful addition to our medicinal herb beds.
Volunteer in the Garden
Do you love the Mütter? Do you have a passion for botany?
If you answered, “Yes,” consider becoming a docent for the Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden! Garden docents are volunteers who help care for and maintain the Rush Garden, and provide presentations to Museum visitors about the garden.