BROUSSAIS, broo'sis', Francois Joseph Victor, French physician: b. Saint Malo, 17 Dec. 1772; d. 17 Nov. 1838. Educated at the College of Dinan, he entered the army and soon attained the rank of sergeant; but a severe ill ness caused him to give up a military career and devote himself to medicine. He studied under his father, and returned to the service with a surgeon's commission, being attached first to the army and then to the navy. In 1799 he studied at Brest and Paris and from 1804-08 was again surgeon in the army; from 1808-14 was chief physician of a division of the French army in Spain, and in 1820 obtained a pro fessorship at Val-de-Grace, a chair which he exchanged in 1831 for that of general pathology in the faculty of medicine at Paris. In 1841, a statue was erected to his memory at Val-de Grace. His first important work was his 'Recherches sur la Fievre HectiquO (1803), which was followed by the more celebrated 'Histoire des Phlegmastes ou inflammations chroniques' (1808), and 'Examen de la doc trine medicate generalement adopt& (1816).
In these works he propounded what is known as the physiological system of medicine. Ac cording to him irritation or excitation is the fundamental property of all living animal tissues, and diseases are produced by an undue increase or diminution of that property. Brous sais also taught and wrote on phrenology. Be sides the works already mentioned, Broussais wrote (Traite de la physiologic appliquee la pathologie' (1824); des propositions de pathofogie consignees dans l'examen' (1829); 'Le cholera morbus epi deinique (1832). Consult Montegre, 'Notice historique sur la vie, les travaux et les opinions de Broussais> (Paris 1839); and Reis, 'Etude sur Broussais et sur son ceuvre> (Paris 1869).