[2] As one of his contemporaries, Thomas Beddoes, a renowned fellow physician, wrote in 1795: "I conclude that he was endowed with that quickness of sympathy and that sensibility to the charms of nature, which characterize the infancy of genius.

"[2] He was forced, however, to leave the parish school at Duns, Scottish Borders due to his family's poverty, and was apprenticed to a local weaver.

His son later wrote, for someone so "highly cultivated": "it may be readily conceived how truly disgusting the sordid life of one of the lowest mechanical businesses must have proved.

[2] Brown played a role in the passionate debates in the Society regarding the reform of medical theory and practice, which had been inaugurated by Albrecht von Haller regarding neuropsychology and promoted by Cullen in Edinburgh.

[5] Due to his own experiences and understanding, Brown began to formulate his own conception of the nature of life and illness that differed from his mentor, Cullen.

As one account stated: "Cullen estranged the mind of his Latin Secretary" and "ceased to hold any communication" with Brown or "even to mention his name.

"[2] In the face of this opposition to his views, Brown set out to give public lectures, contained attacks on preceding systems of medicine, including Cullen's.

However, he ended up in debtor's prison, where he died one evening in 1788 at the age of fifty-two, just after he had managed to publish the third edition of his main work, in English, Elements of Medicine.

John Brown argued that any symptoms of disease or behavior which strayed from that of a healthy individual suggested over-excitement of the body.

On the other hand, an avid follower in Germany, Andreas Röschlaub, perceived Brunonian medicine as an example of natural philosophy and as a changing theory.

This system was also simple enough that many physicians could practice according to Brunonianism, as it did not require extensive anatomical knowledge or association of specific outward symptoms with certain diseases.

Röschlaub, an avid follower of John Brown, also worked with Adalbert Marcus to create a new medical system, which they implemented in a hospital in Bamberg.

The hospital in Bamberg, which became a hub for medicine, included the principles from Brown's theory and helped create a prestigious institute.

[7] Jacob Friedrich Ludwig Lentin's Medizinische Bemerkungen auf ein literarischen Reise durch Deutschland (1800) talked about German medicine being dominated by the struggles of Brunonians and "anti-Brunonian terrorists.

Brown had also become a famous historical figure in Germany by 1846, when Bernhard Hirschel published a study on his system and the effects of Brunonian medicine.