BROWN, John, the founder of the Brunonian 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 as an apprentice to a weaver, the drudgery of which having either disliked, or discovering abilities which by cultivation would 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 thirteenth 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 ecclesiastical 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 session, and required either to submit to ecclesiastical censure, or to suffer a sentence of expulsion. Too proud and 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 joined 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 twentieth 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 to be thus prepared for the examinations which were 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. This situation afforded him an excellent opportunity of improving in medical studies by the conversation of that celebrated professor, and by the permission which was granted him of delivering to private pupils illustrations of the doctor's public lectures. 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 by 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.
It was in 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 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 he was therefore induced to make an excursion to St Andrews, when he took the degree of M. D.
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 fifty-third 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.