Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume III.djvu/339

BROUGHAM BRODSSAIS 333 read by him, May 18, 1858, before the French academy, on "Analytical and Experimental Inquiries on the Cells of Bees," and his speech, delivered June 17, 1858, in the house of lords, on the suppression of the slave trade. A com- plete edition of his works, in 10 volumes, was published in 1857 under his own supervision ; and after his death appeared "The Life and Times of Lord Brougham, written by Himself " (3 vols., London and New York, 1871). A novel ascribed to him, entitled " Lunel," was published in 1872. BROUGHAM, John, an Irish actor and play- wright, born in Dublin, May 9, 1810. He was intended for the medical profession, but the prospect of a government clerkship took him to London, where, being disappointed in this hope, he gave lessons in drawing for some time, and finally became an actor at the Olympic theatre, and subsequently at the Haymarket, where he made a very successful first appear- ance in June, 1832. In 1842 he came to Ame- rica, appeared at the Park theatre, New York, and subsequently performed in almost every theatre in the Union. Having managed a theatre in Boston, he built the Lyceum (after- ward Wallack's) in New York in 1850, but relinquished it at the end of two seasons. He also managed the Bowery theatre, New York, in 1856-7. About 1860 he visited England, returning in 1865, since which time he has been mainly engaged in New York. Mr. Brougham is the author of various comedies, dramas, and extravaganzas, the most popular of which are "Pocahontas," "Romance and Reality," "My Cousin German," "David Cop- per-field," " Dombey and Son," adapted from Dickens, and "The Lily of France" (1872). He has collected some of his fugitive prose sto- ries and articles into two volumes, called " A Basket of Chips" and "The Bunsby Papers." BROUGHTON, Lord. See HOBHOUSE. BROUSSi. See Burs A. ItKOI SSAIS, Franfois Joseph Victor, a French physician, born at St. Malo, Dec. 17, 1772, died at Vitry, near Paris, Nov. 17, 1838. His early years were passed at a small village where his father was a physician. At the age of 12 he was sent to school at Dinan, where he was pur- suing his studies when the revolution broke out in 1789. He was enrolled as a volunteer, and joined the army. After two years he ob- tained leave to return home, on account of sickness. On his recovery he became a student of medicine, and obtained a commission as sur- geon on a ship of war. He held an appoint- ment at Brest from 1795 to 1798 ; but being anxious to pursue a course of study at Paris, he removed there in 1799. He obtained an ap- pointment as military surgeon in 1804, and two years later was sent to the camp at Boulogne ; but the project of invading England being aban- doned, the army was turned against Austria, and Broussais went with it in all its campaigns. In 1808 he obtained leave to go to Paris to super- intend the publication of his Histoire des phleg- masies chroniques. This work, which contains the germs of all his future doctrines, met with little notice at the time; for, although Pinel praised it highly, and it was honorably noticed by the institute, nearly the whole edition remain- ed unsold till 1816. Soon after this publication, in 1808, he was appointed chief physician to a division of the French army in Spain, where he remained six years, pursuing his researches and attending to the duties of his office. In 1814 he was appointed assistant professor at the military hospital of the Val de Grace in Paris. He commenced a course of lectures on practical medicine, in which he attempted to form a system and a school of his own, in op- position to the doctrines of Pinel, then taught in the established schools of medicine. His lectures were attended by great numbers of students, who accepted his ideas with enthu- siasm. In 1816 he published his Examen de doctrine medicale generalement adoptee, &c., which excited the opposition of the whole med- ical faculty. By degrees his doctrines gained approval, and were taught in the medical school itself long before 1832, when Broussais was appointed professor of general pathology in the academy of medicine, which office he held until his death. Besides the two works above mentioned, he published in 1824 his Traite de la physiologic appliquee d la pathologic ; in 1829, his Commentaires des propositions depa- thologie consignees dans Vexamen; in 1832, Le cholera morbiw epidemique. The life of Brous- sais presents three distinct periods. In the first, he labored to prove that the doctrines of Pinel with regard to the essentiality of fever were erroneous, and that some morbid agent, producing irritation and inflammation, was the cause of all disease. From 1816 to 1821 he was successfully occupied in controverting the established theories from this point of view. His followers then complained that he had shown the fallacy of Pinel's theory, but had not sufficiently elaborated a new doctrine to replace it. From 1821 to 1828 he labored to establish what he called the "physiological system of medicine," in opposition to the "on- tological " system of Pinel. The " History of Chronic Inflammations " had prepared the way for his theory of irritation in the organs, cor- responding to a principle of irritability in the organism. He therefore proclaimed this doc- trine as the basis of all medical truth, and sus- tained his views with ability and general suc- cess from 1821 to 1828. It was the doctrine taught by Brown in Edinburgh more than 30 years before, and had already met with much success in England, Germany, and Italy, though little known in France until revived by Broussais under a new form. For seven years Broussais had immense success in France and Belgium, where this theory was practically new. In England and Germany it met with less success, because it had been known as the doctrine of Brown ; .and though very true in many points, it was nevertheless insufficient to