[82] Brunonian System.—Medical doctrines first broached by Dr. John Brown, in his “Elementæ Medicinæ,” in 1780. He imagined that the body was endowed with a certain quantity of excitability, and that every external agent acted as a stimulant on this property of excitability. Health consisted in a just proportion of stimulation, but when this was carried too far, exhaustion, or direct debility, was the consequence, and when not far enough, indirect debility. The diseases which he supposed to arise from one or other of those two states were classed into two orders, the sthenic and the asthenic. Brown was considered no great prophet in his own country, but he exercised considerable influence on the medical doctrines of the Italian schools, which to this day are somewhat tinctured with Brunonianism.
[83] It is fair to observe that this prejudice is gradually disappearing.
[84] Letter to Mr. Pitt.
[85] Letters to Mr. Sharpe. See “Life of Sir James Mackintosh,” by his Son.
[86] Hazlitt.
[87] He only sanctioned one execution.
[88] He would perhaps have repudiated this name; but, as far as opinions gave the title, it certainly at this time belonged to him.
[89] See “Life of Sir James Mackintosh,” by his Son, pp. 246 and 279.
[90] Subsequently he sat for Knaresborough, under the patronage of the Duke of Devonshire.
[91] 27th April, 1815.