University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, United Kingdom
In 1854 Alexander Brown entered the University of Edinburgh, and earned the Master of Arts degree in 1858. Continuing his medical studies, he received the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1861.
Gallery of Alexander Brown
University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom
Alexander Brown also studied for the science degree at the University of London, and in 1862 became the first Doctor of Science.
Career
Achievements
Membership
Royal Society of Edinburgh
1864
8 Belgrave Crescent, Edinburgh EH4 3AQ, United Kingdom
In 1864, Alexander Brown was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; for twenty-six years he acted as one of the Secretaries of that Society, and he served as Vice President from 1905 to 1911.
Royal Society
1879
Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG, United Kingdom
Alexander Brown became a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1879.
Awards
Keith Medal
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 22-26 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ, United Kingdom
In 1875 Alexander Brown received the Keith Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his work on the inner ear, in which he described the purpose of the ampullae and showed how the arrangement of the semicircular canals enabled perception of rotation.
University of Edinburgh, Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, United Kingdom
In 1854 Alexander Brown entered the University of Edinburgh, and earned the Master of Arts degree in 1858. Continuing his medical studies, he received the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1861.
8 Belgrave Crescent, Edinburgh EH4 3AQ, United Kingdom
In 1864, Alexander Brown was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; for twenty-six years he acted as one of the Secretaries of that Society, and he served as Vice President from 1905 to 1911.
Royal Society of Edinburgh, 22-26 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ, United Kingdom
In 1875 Alexander Brown received the Keith Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his work on the inner ear, in which he described the purpose of the ampullae and showed how the arrangement of the semicircular canals enabled perception of rotation.
Alexander Crum Brown was a British organic chemist, and professor of chemistry at the University of Edinburgh from 1869 to 1908, who developed a highly influential system for representing molecules. He also made significant contributions to pharmacology and worked with physiology, phonetics, mathematics, and crystallography.
Background
Alexander C. Brown was born on March 26, 1838, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the only son of John Brown, minister of Broughton Place United Presbyterian Church, and his second wife, Margaret Fisher Crum. He also had a half-brother, the physician, and essayist, John Brown, Jr.
Education
Brown studied for five years at the Royal High School, succeeded by one year at Mill Hill School in London. In 1854 he entered the University of Edinburgh, and earned a Master of Arts degree in 1858. Continuing his medical studies, he received the Doctor of Medicine degree in 1861. During the same time he studied for the science degree at the University of London, and in 1862 became the first Doctor of Science.
After his graduation as Doctor of Medicine in Edinburgh, Brown continued the study of chemistry in Germany, first under Robert Bunsen at Heidelberg University, and then at the University of Marburg under Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe.
Returning to Edinburgh in 1863, Alexander Brown was appointed a lecturer in chemistry, and professor in 1869, a position he held until 1908.
In his thesis, Brown discussed the chemical structure and the application of mathematics to chemistry, the subjects that interested him most. The first attempts had just been made to represent the structure of compounds by various types of graphical formulas. Brown was dissatisfied with the unwieldy diagrams invented by Kekulé and proposed a more convenient scheme. He represented constituent atoms by circles drawn around the usual letter symbols, with a number of lines proceeding from them according to their valences. He indicated atomic linkage by lines, first dotted and later solid. In 1865 he invented the symbol, which is still in use, of two parallel lines for a double bond. Unknown to him, Archibald Couper, also in Edinburgh, had already employed a similar system of letters and lines. However, the graphical formulas used today most resemble those suggested by Alexander Brown. The latter were popularized by Frankland, who adopted them throughout his lectures.
Also in structural chemistry, in 1892 Alexander Brown put forward the rule determining the positions of groups entering the benzene ring in the substitution of monoderivatives.
He was convinced that chemistry would one day achieve the perfection of mathematical science. This was a common feeling, earlier expressed by Davy and Herschel. Brown was inspired by a belief in the unified plan of the Creation. This would be revealed in the ultimate reduction of all physical sciences to dynamics. Just as optics and heat, in their maturity, had become branches of applied mathematics, so he expected chemistry, undeveloped and fragmentary, eventually to be mathematically deducible from mechanics. In 1867 he showed how some steps might be taken in this direction. Regarding chemical substances as operands and the processes performed on them as operators, he derived mathematical expressions corresponding to successive chemical substitutions. Although it was similar in appearance to Brodie’s more elaborate operational calculus, his work was distinct from this. He thought Brodie had been "too severe" on chemists who had used atomic language and insisted that it could be adopted without believing in atoms. He stated that while physics showed matter to be molecular, chemists could use atomic symbols without concern for their physical significance. Even if matter were proved to be continuous, his graphical formulas would still be useful. This common pragmatic attitude to the atomic theory was soon attacked by Williamson. Alexander Brown’s address to the British Association in 1874 was a more realistic approach. Neither he nor Brodie made any lasting contribution to mathematical chemistry.
In physiology, Alexander Brown was fascinated by the effects produced through rotation. He investigated the various sensations of vertigo in a subject rotating blindfolded on a table. He correctly related these to the motion of liquid in the semicircular canals of the inner ear. His work appeared soon after Mach and Breuer had given the same explanation, but his theory was an advance in that it detailed the coordinated action of the canals on both sides of the head, which Mach had rejected. Alexander Brown stated for the first time that the two horizontal canals differed from one another in that they received their stimuli from motions in opposite directions, thus allowing a blindfolded subject to distinguish between rotations to the left and to the right. To illustrate his theory, he constructed a mechanical model. This consisted of two heavy wheels fixed horizontally and side by side so that they could rotate about a vertical axis in opposite directions. Each wheel had a stop that prevented its rotation beyond a certain point in one direction; its rotation in the opposite direction was restricted by the stretching of a spring. The axle of each wheel contained an adjustable stopcock, which widened as the springs stretched and through which gas was passed from pipes and ignited.
Alexander Brown said that the wheels represented the horizontal canals of the ear and that the inertia of the former corresponded with the inertia of the fluid contained in the latter. The stretching of the springs represented the stretching of the ampullae. The variation in the flames that occurred as the springs stretched and relaxed during the rotation of the wheels illustrated the different brain messages transmitted by the nerves as their endings were stimulated by the stretching of the ampullae during the rotation of the body.
Quotations:
"Unless the chemist learns the language of mathematics, he will become a provincial and the higher branches of chemical work, that require reason as well as skill, will gradually pass out of his hands."
Membership
Royal Society of Edinburgh
,
United Kingdom
1864
British Association
,
United Kingdom
1874
Royal Society
,
United Kingdom
1879
Chemical Society
,
United Kingdom
1891 - 1893
Connections
In 1866 Alexander Brown married Jane Bailie Porter, the daughter of the Reverend James Porter of Drumlee, County Down. There had no children.
In 1875 Alexander Brown received the Keith Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his work on the inner ear, in which he described the purpose of the ampullae and showed how the arrangement of the semicircular canals enabled perception of rotation.
In 1875 Alexander Brown received the Keith Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh for his work on the inner ear, in which he described the purpose of the ampullae and showed how the arrangement of the semicircular canals enabled perception of rotation.