Brunton, Thomas Lauder

(b. Roxburgh, Scotland, 14 March 1844; d. London, England, 16 September 1916)

physiology, pharmacology.

Brunton received his formal scientific education at the University of Edinburgh (B.Sc., 1867; M.D., 1868; D.Sc., 1870) and spent two years in Continental laboratories, including Ludwig’s in Leipzig and Kühne’s in Amsterdam. In 1870 he settled in London, and the next year he was appointed lecturer in materia medica and casualty physician to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. He became assistant physician there in 1875, physician in 1897, and consulting physician in 1904. Brunton was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1874 and of the Royal College of Physicians in 1876, was knighted in 1900, and was awarded a baronetcy in 1909.

Brunton’s lifelong research interests centered on the physiology and therapy of the cardiovascular and digestive systems. In his prize-winning thesis of 1866 he investigated the pharmacological properties of digitalis, a subject to which he frequently returned. He also studied the cardiotonic actions of casca bark (Erythrophloeum guineense, 1880). In 1905 Brunton delivered a series of lectures at the University of London, later published as Therapeutics of the Circulation (1908), in which he took the many facets of his own work in the field and placed them in the context of contemporary knowledge.

While working as a resident physician in 1867, Brunton discovered that amyl nitrite, a drug already studied experimentally by Frederick Guthrie, Benjamin Richardson, and Arthur Gamgee, was useful in the relief of angina pectoris. Brunton’s physiological approach to therapeutics is nowhere better illustrated than in this episode. His measurements of blood pressure led him to believe that angina is caused by transient bouts of hypertension and that amyl nitrite, the first known vasodilator, should therefore be efficacious. That angina was subsequently found to be caused by ischemia rather than hypertension did not invalidate Brunton’s reasoning; the drug is still used in the treatment of this condition.

Brunton’s early research on digestive physiology may be found in Burdon-Sanderson’s Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory (1873). The section on digestion, written by Brunton, contains literally hundreds of experiments, each performed or verified by Brunton himself. His scattered papers on the digestive tract were collected in two later volumes (1886, 1901).

His work in digestive physiology led Brunton to consider diabetes, a condition that he tried to treat by the oral administration of raw muscle, in the hope that the glycolytic properties of the muscle would correct the faulty carbohydrate metabolism (1874). His concept of “organotherapy” was vindicated within fifteen years by the successful treatment of myxedema with thyroid extract.

In addition to his original contributions, Brunton played an important role in the development of pharmacology into an independent and rigorous science. In his Goulstonian lectures of 1877 (Pharmacology and Therapeutics) he surveyed the history and contemporary state of pharmacological research. His Croonian lectures of 1889 (An Introduction to Modern Therapeutics) dealt with molecular pharmacology in discussing the relation of chemical structure to physiological action. A Textbook of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Materia Medica (1885), the first comprehensive treatise on pharmacology, remains his most important work. In it Brunton abandoned the traditional discussions of classic materia medica and emphasized the physiological actions of pure drugs. Immediately accepted as authoritative, the book was translated into French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Brunton’s Lectures on the Actions of Medicines (1897), using the same basic structure, went through three editions in as many years.

Brunton was known to his contemporaries as a therapeutic activist. He envisioned an almost unlimited ability of scientific pharmacology to eradicate and prevent disease, stressing at the same time other modes of prophylaxis and therapy, such as massage, baths, exercise, and improved public health services.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. Brunton’s writings include “On the Use of Nitrite of Amyl in Angina Pectoris,” in Lancet (1867), 2 , 97–98; On Digitalis (London, 1868); the section on digestion in Burdon-Sanderson, Handbook for the Physiological Laboratory, I (London, 1873); “The Pathology and Treatment of Diabetes Mellitus,” in British Medical Journal (1874), 1 , 1–3; Pharmacology and Therapeutics (London, 1880); The Bible and Science (London, 1881); A Textbook of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Materia Medica (London, 1885); On Disorders of Digestion (London, 1886); An Introduction to Modern Therapeutics (London, 1892); Modern Developments of Harvey’s Work (London, 1894), the Harveian oration for 1894; Lectures on the Actions of Medicines (1897); and On Disorders of Assimilation, Digestion, etc. (London, 1901). Brunton also edited the 3rd ed. of Murchison’s Clinical Lectures on Diseases of the Liver (London, 1885).

II. Secondary Literature. Additional biographical material may be found in the following obituary notices: British Medical Journal (1916), 2 , 440–442; Lancet (1916), 2 , 572–575; and Proceedings of the Royal Society, 89B (1917), 44–48. For consideration of two relatively minor aspects of Brunton’s work, see Fielding H. Garrison, “Sir Thomas Lauder Brunton, M.D. (1844–1916). An Apostle of Preparedness,” in The Military Surgeon, 40 (1917), 369–377; H. Meade, A History of Thoracic Surgery (Springfield, III., 1961), pp. 430–458.

William F. Bynum