18 GENERAL THERAPEUTICS FOR VETERINARIANS 



Stahl. — Founder of the chemical phlogiston theory and the spiritual 

 theory (principal work: Theoria medica vera, 1701); expective method of 

 treatment. Bom in Ansbach in 1660, professor in Halle 1694; private physi- 

 cian to King Frederic WiUiam I in BerUn 1716; died 1734, Stahl's ointment 

 for bums and Stahl's pills perpetuate his name, 



Albrecht von Haller. — Physician, anatomist, physiologist, botanist, and 

 poet. Discoverer of the irritability of the muscle fibres. Bom in Bern 1708; 

 professor in Gottingen 1736; president of the Royal Society of the Sciences. 

 Died in Bern 1777, 



5. BROWN 



Biographical. — F. Brown was born in Bumbe,England, in 1735. 

 At first a linen weaver, he later studied theology and medicine and 

 was a physician in London. His principal work, " Elementa medi- 

 cinae," was written in 1780. He died in London in 1788. His 

 most celebrated follower was the Italian, Rasori (died 1837). 



Brown's Theory. — Brown was the fomider of the so-called 

 Brownianism, which was in direct opposition to the humoral pa- 

 thology and attributed all disease to a deficiency or excess of stim- 

 uli or excitability. A medium degree of stimulation or excitability 

 constituted health. Disease was due to either an increase of the 

 excitability (sthenia) or a decrease (asthenia). Medicines also 

 were sthenic, i.e., strengthening (alcohol, camphor, arnica), or 

 asthenic, i.e., weakening (bleeding, hunger). The one-sided 

 Brownian theory was later transformed by Roschlaub into the so- 

 called ''stimulation theory" and by Rasori into the theory of 

 "contra-stimulus" (irritant and counter-irritant). These two 

 modifications of Brownianism are also only of historical interest. 



Hufeland. — An opponent of Brownianism, he contrasted the vital forces, 

 vis vitalis, with the natural healing forces, vis natures medicatrix, and promoted 

 especially the antipyretic method of treatment (cold-water applications). 

 His chief work was entitled "Makrobiotik," published in 1796. Bom in 

 Langensalza in 1762, he died in 1836 in Berlin, where he was a professor and 

 private physician to King Frederic WiUiam III. 



Schonlein. — Founder of the expective method of treatment. He regarded 

 disease as an independent process which must be allowed to run its course. 

 He taught medicine from the stand-point of the natural sciences and intro- 

 duced methods of clinical examination. The foimdations were laid by him 

 of the so-called natural-history school and the later physiocratic or natural 



