BBOUSSAIS. 550 BROWN. ■was liorn at Saint Malo, France, and was edu- cated in the Dinan Public School. He volun- teered at the outbreak of the Revolution, but ill health caused his dischar<re from the army. He then studied medicine under his father, who was a physician, and returned to the service with a sur!;eon"s commission, being attadu-d first to the army and later to the navy. In 1790 he bejian a course of medical study in Paris. From 1S04 to 1808 he was again a sur- geon in the army, and from 1808 to 1814 he was chief physician of a division of the French Army in Spain. In 18:20 he was ajjpointed professor at the military hospital of Valde-Grace. in Paris, after serving a few years as assistant professor. In 1830 he "became professor of {reneral pathol- ofry and thera]>eutics in the Faculty of iledicine in Paris, and afterwards was made a member of the Institute. In 1841 a statue was erected to his memory in the court of Val-de-Grfice. Brous- sais's peculiar views are ably explained in his chief works — the Histoire des phlegmasies ou inflammalions chroniiiiies (1808) and Examcn dp la doctrine mfdiriile riendrah'inent adoptee ( 1810) — -which assert tlie following principles: No life is possible without excitation or irrita- tion. As long as the excitation is evenly dis- tributed throughout the organism and remains within certain limits of intensity, the processes of life go on in a normal physiological manner; but if the limits are exceeded, i.e. if excitation becomes either too strong or too weak, the re- sult is a condition of disease. Disease, originally local and generally caused by local over-e.xcita- tion, gradually spreads in the body by physiolo- gical sympathy, and thus becomes general. The organs most subject to local over-excitement are the stomach and the intestines, and hence a great many general diseases are directly traceable to local disease of these organs. Broussais's ideas, which bear an unmistakable resemblance to those of the Brunonian system of medicine, gained many adherents, especially in France, who took the name of 'the Physiological School.' The historical importance of tlie theory lies in the fact that it has led to a careful study of physi- ological sympathies and of pathological anatomy. and thus to the building up of important chapters of modern medical science. Besides the works already mentioned, Broussais wrote: Traile de la physiologic appliquie a la path- ologic (1824); Commentaires des propositions de pathologic consignees dans I'cxamen (1820); and Le cholera morbus fpidemi(iuc (18.32). Consult Mont^gre, Soticc historique siir la vie, les traiaiix et les opinions de Brotissais (Paris, 1839) : and Reis, Etude sur Broussnis et sur son irurn (Paris, 1S(;9). See Bkown, John. BROUSSON, broo'soN'. Claude (1647-98). A French Protestant martyr, an advocate and legal defender of the Iluguenots. His house was the rendezvous of certain Protestant lead- ers, and he was compelled to fly from his native city (Toulouse), barely escaping into Switzer- land. He ventured into' France twice afterwards, at great peril, to preach and give comfort to his co-religionists. Finally, in 1098, after a great price iiad been set on his head, he was caught, and on the flimsy charge of treason, in conspir- ing with the Duke of Schomberg to invade France, he was sentenced to be broken on the wheel. He left a large number of works, one of which was LVtat des rcformds de France (1685). Consult Payne, The Evangelist of the Desert (18.53). BROUSSONET, broo'sft'nft'. Piebre Marie AUGUSTE (1701-1807). A French naturalist. He received his doctorate when only 18, and visited London, where he published his lehthy- ologiw Denis Prima (1782), and was made a member of the Royal Society. He returned to Paris in 1783, tatight in the College of France, reorganized the Society of Agriculture, and in 1785 was made a member of the Academy of Sciences. He was elected to the Legislative As- sembly, but under the Convention «as suspected of being a Girondist and fled to Spain. He went as physician to an embassy which the L'nited States sent to Morocco, and afterwards was French consul at TenerifTe. In 1805 he was appointed professor of botany at Montpellier. Broussonet is stated to have been the first to in- troduce the Angora goat and Merino sheep into France. He published many memoirs on botany and ichthyidogy. BROUWER, brou'er, Adrian. See Brauwer. BROWDIE, brou'di, John. A gigantic York- shireman in Dickens's Xicholas Xicl:lebu. Al- though somewhat suspicious of Nicholas at their first meeting, he later becomes his firm friend. He is finally married to the bewitching Tilly Price. He rescues the recaptured Smike. and also brings the news of Squeers's imprisonment to Dothebnys Hall, and encourages the pupils in making their escape. BROWER, Daniel Roberts (1839—). An American physician, born in Philadelphia, Pa. He graduated at the Polytechnic College there in 1800, at the medical department of the L'ni- versity of Georgetown in 1804. and in that year was appointed assistant surgeon of United States Volunteers. From 18G8 to 1875 he was medical superintendent of the Eastern Lunatic Asylum of Virginia (Villiam.sburg) , and later became professor of nervous and mental diseases in the Rush Medical College of Chicago. III. He was also appointed professor of nervous diseases in the Woman's Jtedical College of the Northwest- ern University (Evanston), and in the Post- graduate Jledical School. For several years he was editor of the Medical Journal, and he has published numerous monographs. BROWN, Aaron Ven.ble (1795-18.59). An .American politician. He was born in Virginia, but later removed to Tennessee. He jjracticed law for a time in partnership with James K. Polk, and was a member of Congress from 183£^ to 1845, when he was elected Governor of Ten- nessee. In 1852 he was a delegate from Ten- nessee to the National Democratic Convention in Baltimore, where he reported the platform ultimately adopted by the Democratic Party. From 1857 until his death he was Postmaster- General of the United States, and as such he es- tablished a route to California by way of the Isthmus of Teluuintepec, an overland route from Saint Louis, and a thiid across the continent by wav of Salt Lake. His speeches were pub- lished "in Nashville (1854). BROWN, .ViEXANDER (1843—). An Ameri- can historical writer, the author of several books on the early history of ^'irginia. He was born in Glenmore, Va., studied for a short time at Lynchburg College, served in the Confederate
