Brown

Brown, John (Brunonian theory) of medicine, was born in 1735, in the parish of Bunkle, Berwickshire. Educated at the Dunse grammar school, he removed thence to Edinburgh, where he supported himself by private teaching and attended lectures at the University. In course of time he attracted the notice of Dr. Cullen, who employed him as a kind of assistant, and entrusted him with the tuition of his children. Considering himself not fairly treated by Cullen in regard to his claims to a vacant professorship, Brown broke off the friendship and began to lecture on his own account, advancing the system of medicine that is now associated with his name, and according to which all diseases are of two kinds, the sthenic and the asthenic, or those caused by an excess and those caused by a deficiency of excitement - the former to be treated by debilitating, and the latter by stimulating medicines. In 1780 he published an exposition of his system in Elementa Medicinae, a treatise that was widely read on the Continent. Though he attracted a good many followers, he also roused a great deal of opposition. He also became pecuniarily embarrassed, and was lodged in prison for debt. In 1786 he removed to London, and just as his prospects began to brighten, he died in 1788. He also published in 1787, Observations on the Present System of Spasm as taught in the University of Edinburgh, a scathing criticism of Cullen's errors, and the year before he left Edinburgh, A short Account of the Old Method of Cure, and Outline of the New Doctrine.