born 1735, Buncle, Berwickshire, Scot.
died Oct. 17, 1788, London, Eng.
British physician.
He propounded the "excitability" theory published in Elementa medicinae (1780), which classified diseases as over-or understimulating and held that internal and external "exciting powers," or stimuli, operate on living tissues. Brown viewed diseases as states of decreased excitability, requiring stimulants, or increased excitability, requiring sedatives. Hermann von Helmholtz discredited the theory.