BROWN, JOHN (1735-1788), Scottish physician, was born in 1735 at Lintlaws or at Preston, Berwickshire. As a student at Edinburgh he soon attracted the notice of William Cullen, who treated him in some respects as an assistant professor. In time, however, he quarrelled with Cullen, as with the professors of the university in general, and from about 1778 his public lectures contained vigorous attacks on all preceding systems of medicine and Cullen's in particular. In his Elementa Medicinae (178o), he expounds his own, or as it was then called the Brunonian, theory of medicine. In 1786 he settled in London, and died there on Oct. 17, 1788.
An edition of his works, with notice of his life by his son, William Cullen Brown, appeared in 1804.