BROWN

BROWN, John, M. D. the founder of a modern theory of physic, was born about the year 1735 or 1736 in the parish of Bunce, in Berwickshire, Scotland. His parents being in an inferior rank of life, while he was very young, he was put an apprentice to a weaver, the

known to your majesty: many such doubtless there are, though courts are not usually the places where the devout resort, or where devotion reigns. And it is not improbable, that multitudes of the pious throughout the land may take a case to heart, that under your majesty's patronage comes thus recommended. Could such a favour as this restoration be obtained from heaven by the prayers of your majesty, with what transport of gratitude would the recovered being throw himself at your majesty's feet, and, adoring the divine power and grace, profess himself, Madam, your majesty's most obliged and dutiful servant, SIMON BROWN.

Brown. the drudgery of which having either disliked, or discovering abilities which would by cultivation raise him to a more conspicuous station, his destination was changed, and he was placed at the grammar school of Dunse. Here he soon distinguished himself, and gave abundant proofs, by his ardour and success in the studies which occupied his attention, that he was worthy of being encouraged in literary pursuits. His parents belonged to that body of dissenters, in Scotland called Seceders. Flattered with the rapid and successful progress which their son had begun to make in the acquisition of the Latin language, they destined him to the ministerial office among their own sect. With this view his education was for some time directed. But an accident it is said made him at once renounce this plan and the sect, the tenets of which, as will appear from this circumstance, are extremely rigid. So early as his 13th year, while at the grammar school, he was prevailed upon, though not without showing considerable reluctance, to attend a meeting of synod, one of the church courts of Scotland, which was held in the church of Dunse. This, in the estimation of the party to which he belonged, was a transgression which could not be passed over without notice. Young Brown was called upon to appear before the church-court, and he must either submit to ecclesiastical censure, or suffer a sentence of expulsion. Too proud or indignant to yield to the one, or to wait for the other, he anticipated or prevented the effects of both, by declaring that he was no longer a member of the sect, and joining himself to the established church. From this time, it would appear, his religious ardour was much abated, and his rigid principles were greatly relaxed.

After this period, Brown was for some time engaged as a private tutor in a gentleman's family in the country; and here, and as an assistant in the grammar school of Dunse, he remained till about his 20th year, when he went to Edinburgh, and having passed through the previous necessary studies in the classes of philosophy, entered himself as a student of divinity in the university. His classical knowledge was now of real advantage to him; for while he resided in Edinburgh, pursuing the plan of his studies, he was able to support himself by private teaching. In this situation he continued for some time, after which he resumed his former labours as assistant in the grammar school of Dunse for a year, and returned to Edinburgh about the year 1759, when he finally renounced the study of theology, and commenced that of physic.

During his medical studies, he supported himself by his own exertions. He was employed in giving private instructions to students who wished to acquire the habit of expressing themselves with facility and correctness in the Latin language, and thus to be prepared for the examinations which are conducted in that language, for medical degrees in the university. For this employment, as well as for translating inaugural dissertations into the same language, the previous studies and acquirements of Brown peculiarly fitted him. Thus occupied, he soon recommended himself to the notice of several of the professors, and particularly to that of Dr Cullen, whose patronage and friendship he obtained in an eminent degree. The doctor not only employed him as a private tutor in his own family, but was extremely assiduous in recommending him to others.

Brown. This situation afforded him an excellent opportunity of improving in medical studies by the conversation of the celebrated professor, and by the permission which was granted him of delivering lectures or illustrations of the doctor's public lectures to private pupils. In this way Mr Brown began to have full employment, and prosperity seemed to smile upon him. It was about this time that he married the daughter of a respectable tradesman in Edinburgh, and opened a house for boarding students. His house was soon filled with boarders, who were attracted by the hope of great benefit from his instructions and conversation. But here it soon appeared that he was unfit for the management of such concerns. By want of economy or misconduct his affairs were soon greatly embarrassed, and at last terminated in total bankruptcy. Soured and irritated by this misfortune, and still more so, it is probable, by being disappointed of one of the medical chairs in the university, which he supposed had been occasioned by the interference of Dr Cullen, he quarrelled with his friend and patron, and from that moment set himself up as a keen opponent of his doctrines. His application to be admitted a member of the philosophical society was about the same time rejected; and this, which he imagined arose from the same influence, tended not a little to foment the quarrel.

This seems to have been the origin of the celebrated theory which divided the medical world, which excited so much interest in those who espoused or opposed it, and inspired such a degree of enthusiasm in the debates and writings, especially of the pupils of the seminary which gave it birth, that it not unfrequently burst forth with all the violence of religious frenzy. This indeed is little to be wondered at, when we consider that half-educated young men, as is the case with the great proportion of medical students, unaccustomed to patient investigation, and fond of novelty, are the most apt to embrace such speculations, as could be supported and defended by ingenious and subtle reasonings, rather than by accurate and extensive observation; and think themselves regarded by their friends and admirers as distinguished philosophers, in proportion to their ability in starting objections to received opinions, and overthrowing established doctrines. At the same time, it is but justice to observe, that those who adhered to his opinions, were also often treated with suspicion and similar violence. This opposition of sentiment and struggle of opinions had a natural tendency to unite more closely those who were on the same side, and this probably in the end was the cause of poor Brown's future misfortunes. Besides, on account of the convivial talents which he possessed, his company was earnestly courted by the gay and the dissipated, and this led him to frequent meetings and clubs in taverns, where the dictates of prudence and the rules of temperance were rarely observed. Indulging the same spirit, he was principally concerned in the institution of a lodge of free masons, in which the business was conducted in the Latin language. His views in promoting this institution, were, it is said, to attract students to attend his lectures, or to become proselytes to his doctrines.

It was about the year 1780, that the first edition of his Elementa Medicinæ appeared. This work is a compendium of his opinions, which he continued for several years to illustrate by a course of public lectures. And

Brown. And as he now proposed to prosecute the profession of medicine by private practice and public instruction, it was found necessary to have a medical degree, as a testimony to the world of his qualifications. Having opposed and quarrelled with all the professors in the university of Edinburgh, there was little hope of his succeeding there; and therefore, in consequence of an application to the university of St Andrews, he was admitted to medical honours.

But the terms on which Dr Brown lived with his medical brethren, and the unfortunate habits which were daily gathering strength, precluded him from all rational hopes of success, either as a private practitioner or a public teacher. He therefore turned his thoughts to London, and removed to that metropolis in the year 1786. Previous to 1788, he had delivered one course of lectures; for in October of this year, he was cut off by a fit of apoplexy, on the day after he had delivered his introductory lecture to a second course. He died in the 53d year of his age.

Dr Brown possessed great vigour of mind, and seems to have been capable of considerable application. His talents, had they been directed to more practical and more useful objects, would have probably raised him to more eminent distinction, and rendered him a more valuable member of society. The style of his Elementa is harsh and unpolished. His meaning is often dark and ambiguous. But perhaps this want of perspicuity is as much owing to the subjects which he treated, the principles of which are far from being settled, as to the obscurity of his expression. He attempted an unbeaten path; it is not wonderful that he was often bewildered and lost.

To the sketch which we have now given of the life of Dr Brown, it will be expected, by some of our readers, that we add some account of the leading features of his theory. The following, extracted from the observations prefixed to an edition of the Elements of Medicine, published by Dr Beddoes, will perhaps be as correct and satisfactory as any thing we can give.

"The varied structure of organized beings, it is the business of anatomy to explain. Consciousness, assisted by common observation, will distinguish animated from inanimate bodies with precision more than sufficient for all the ends of medicine. The cause of gravitation has been left unexplored by all prudent philosophers; and Brown, avoiding all useless disquisition concerning the cause of vitality, confines himself to the phenomena which this great moving principle in nature may be observed to produce. His most general propositions are easy of comprehension.

"1. To every animated being is allotted a certain portion only of the quality or principle on which the phenomena of life depend. This principle is denominated excitability.

"2. The excitability varies in different animals, and in the same animal at different times. As it is more intense, the animal is more vivacious or more susceptible of the action of exciting powers.

"3. Exciting powers may be referred to two classes. 1. External; as heat, food, wine, poisons, contagions, the blood, secreted fluids, and air. 2. Internal; as the functions of the body itself, muscular exertion, thinking, emotion and passion.

Brown. "4. Life is a forced state; if the exciting powers are withdrawn, death ensues as certainly as when the excitability is gone.

"5. The excitement may be too great, too small, or in just measure.

"6. By too great excitement, weakness is induced, because the excitability becomes defective; this is indirect debility: when the exciting powers of stimulants are withheld, weakness is induced; and this is direct debility. Here the excitability is in excess.

"7. Every power that acts on the living frame is stimulant, or produces excitement by expending excitability. Thus, although a person, accustomed to animal food, may grow weak if he lives upon vegetables, still the vegetable diet can only be considered as producing an effect, the same in kind with animals, though inferior in degree. Whatever powers, therefore, we imagine, and however they vary from such as are habitually applied to produce due excitement, they can only weaken the system by urging it into too much motion, or suffering it to sink into languor.

"8. Excitability is seated in the medullary portion of the nerves, and in the muscles. As soon as it is anywhere affected, is immediately affected everywhere; nor is the excitement ever increased in a part, while it is generally diminished in the system; in other words, different parts can never be in opposite states of excitement.

"I have already spoken of an illustration, drawn up by Mr Christie from a familiar operation, to facilitate the conception of Brown's fundamental positions. I introduce it here as more likely to answer its purpose than if separately placed at the end of my preliminary observations. 'Suppose a fire to be made in a grate, filled with a kind of fuel not very combustible, and which could only be kept burning by means of a machine containing several tubes, placed before it, and constantly pouring streams of air into it. Suppose also a pipe to be fixed in the back of the chimney, through which a constant supply of fresh fuel was gradually let down into the grate, to repair the waste occasioned by the flame, kept up by the air machine.'

'The grate will represent the human frame; the fuel in it, the matter of life—the excitability of Dr Brown, and the sensorial power of Dr Darwin; the tube behind, supplying fresh fuel, will denote the power of all living systems, constantly to regenerate or reproduce excitability; while the air machine, of several tubes, denotes the various stimuli applied to the excitability of the body; and the flame drawn forth in consequence of that application represents life, the product of the exciting powers acting upon the excitability.'

'As Dr Brown has defined life to be a forced state, it is fitly represented by a flame forcibly drawn forth from fuel little disposed to combustion, by the constant application of streams of air poured into it from the different tubes of a machine. If some of these tubes are disposed to convey pure or dephlogisticated air, they will denote the highest class of exciting powers, opium, musk, camphor, spirits, wine, tobacco, &c. the diffusible stimuli of Dr Brown, which bring forth for a time a greater quantity of life than usual, as the blowing in of pure air into a fire will temporarily draw forth an uncommon quantity of flame. If others of the tubes

be supposed to convey common or atmospheric air, they will represent the ordinary exciting powers or stimuli applied to the human frame, such as heat, light, air, food, drink, &c. while such as convey impure and inflammable air may be used to denote what have formerly been termed sedative powers, such as poisons, contagious miasmata, foul air, &c.

The reader will now probably be at no loss to understand the seeming paradox of the Brunonian system; that food, drink, and all the powers applied to the body, though they support life, yet consume it; for he will see, that the application of these powers, though it brings forth life, yet at the same time it wastes the excitability or matter of life, just as the air blown into the fire brings forth more flame, but wastes the fuel or matter of fire. This is conformable to the common saying, "the more a spark is blown, the brighter it burns, and the sooner it is spent." A Roman poet has given us, without intending it, an excellent illustration of the Brunonian system, when he says,

"Balnea, vina, venus, consumunt corpora nostra ;
Sed vitam faciunt balnea, vina, venus."

"Wine, warmth, and love, our vigour drain ;
Yet wine, warmth, love, our life sustain."

Or to translate it more literally,

"Baths, women, wine, exhaust our frame ;
But life itself is drawn from them."

Equally easy will it be to illustrate the two kinds of debility, termed direct and indirect, which, according to Brown, are the cause of all diseases. If the quantity of stimulus, or exciting power, is proportioned to the quantity of excitability, that is, if no more excitement is drawn forth than is equal to the quantity of excitability produced, the human frame will be in a state of health; just as the fire will be in a vigorous state when no more air is blown in than is sufficient to consume the fresh supply of fuel constantly poured down by the tube behind. If a sufficient quantity of stimulus is not applied, or air not blown in, the excitability in the man, and the fuel in the fire, will accumulate, producing direct debility; for the man will become weak, and the fire low. Carried to a certain degree, they will occasion death to the first, and extinction to the last. If, again, an over proportion of stimulus be applied, or too much air blown in, the excitability will soon be wasted, and the matter of fuel almost spent. Hence will arise indirect debility, producing the same weakness in the man, and lowness in the fire, as before, and equally terminating, when carried to a certain degree, in death and extinction.

As all the diseases of the body, according to Dr Brown, are occasioned by direct or indirect debility, in consequence of too much or too little stimuli, so all the defects of the fire must arise from direct or indirect lowness, in consequence of too much or too little air blown into it. As Brown taught that one debility was never to be cured by another, but both by the more judicious application of stimuli, so will be found the case in treating the defects of the fire. If the fire has become low, or the man weak, by the want of the needful quantity of stimulus, more must be applied, but very gently at first, and increased by degrees, lest a strong stimulus

applied to the accumulated excitability should produce death; as in the case of a limb benumbed with cold (that is, weakened by the accumulation of its excitability in consequence of the abstraction of the usual stimulus of heat), and suddenly held to the fire, which we know from experience is in danger of mortification; or as in the case of the fire becoming very low by the accumulation of the matter of fuel, when the feeble flame, assailed by a sudden and strong blast of air, would be overpowered and put out, instead of being nourished and increased. Again, if the man or the fire have been rendered indirectly weak, by the application of too much stimulus, we are not suddenly to withdraw the whole, or even a great quantity of the exciting powers or air, for then the weakened life and diminished flame might sink entirely; but we are by little and little to diminish the overplus of stimulus, so as to enable the excitability, or matter of fuel, gradually to recover its proper proportion. Thus a man who has injured his constitution by the abuse of spirituous liquors is not suddenly to be reduced to water alone, as is the practice of some physicians, but he is to be treated as the judicious Dr Pitcairn of Edinburgh is said to have treated a Highland chieftain, who applied to him for advice in this situation. The doctor gave him no medicines, and only exacted a promise of him, that he would every day put as much wax into the wooden queich, out of which he drank his whisky, as would receive the impression of his arms. The wax thus gradually accumulating, diminished daily the quantity of the whisky, till the whole queich was filled with wax; and the chieftain was thus gradually, and without injury to his constitution, cured of the habit of drinking spirits.

These analogies might be pursued farther; but my object is solely to furnish some general ideas, to prepare the reader for entering more easily into the Brunonian theory, which I think he will be enabled to do after perusing what I have said. The great excellence of the theory, as applied, not only to the practice of physic, but to the general conduct of the health, is, that it impresses on the mind a sense of the impropriety and danger of going from one extreme to another. The human frame is capable of enduring great varieties, if time be given it to accommodate itself to different states. All the mischief is done in the transition from one state to another. In a state of low excitement we are not rashly to induce a state of high excitement, nor when elevated to the latter, are we suddenly to descend to the former, but step by step, and as one who from the top of a high tower descends to the ground. From hasty and violent changes, the human frame always suffers; its particles are torn asunder, its organs injured, the vital principle impaired, and disease, often death, is the inevitable consequence.

I have only to add, that though in this illustration of the Brunonian system (written several years ago), I have spoken of a tube constantly pouring in fresh fuel, because I could not otherwise convey to the reader a familiar idea of the power possessed by all living systems, to renew their excitability when exhausted; yet it may be proper to inform the student, that Dr Brown supposed every living system to have received at the beginning its determinate portion of excitability; and, therefore, although he spoke of the exhaustion, augmentation,

tion, and even renewal, of excitability, I do not think it was his intention to induce his pupils to think of it as a kind of fluid substance existing in the animal, and subject to the law by which substances are governed. According to him, excitability was an unknown somewhat, subject to peculiar laws of its own, and whose different states we are obliged to describe (though inaccurately) by terms borrowed from the qualities of material substances.¹

"The Brunonian system has frequently been charged with promoting intemperance. The objection is serious; but the view already given of its principles shows it to be groundless. No writer had insisted so much upon the dependence of life on external causes, or so strongly stated the inevitable consequences of excess. And there are no means of promoting morality upon which we can rely, except the knowledge of the true relations between man and other beings or bodies. For by this knowledge we are directly led to shun what is hurtful, and pursue what is salutary: and in what else does moral conduct, as far as it regards the individual, consist? It may be said that the author's life disproves the justness of this representation: his life, however, only shows the superior power of other causes, and of bad habits in particular; and I am ready to acknowledge the little efficacy of instruction when bad habits are formed. Its great use consists in preventing their formation; for which reason popular instruction in medicine would contribute more to the happiness of the human species, than the complete knowledge of every thing which is attempted to be taught in education, as it is conducted at present. But though the principles of the system in question did not correct the propensities of its inventor, it does not follow that they tend to produce the same propensities in others."