Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/381

  of the Browning and Forster families. It is possible that Forster may have received some help from Browning in the preparation of the book, but it was certainly written by Forster.  BROWN-SÉQUARD, CHARLES EDWARD (1817–1894), physiologist, born at Port Louis, Mauritius, on 8 April 1817, was the posthumous son of Edward Brown, captain of a merchant vessel belonging to Philadelphia. His father was of Galway origin; his mother was of the Provençal family of Séquard, which had been for some years settled in the Isle of France. After receiving a scanty education, he acted for a time as a clerk in a store, but in 1838 he arrived with his mother at Nantes, whence they made their way to Paris. He hoped at this time to make literature his profession, but by the advice of Charles Nodier he began the study of medicine. His expenses were defrayed by the help of his mother, who shared her house with the sons of some other Mauritians then studying in Paris. About this time, however, she died, and Brown affixed her maiden name to his own. In 1846 he was admitted M.D. of Paris, with a thesis on the reflex action of the spinal cord after it had been separated from the brain, and he had then served as 'externe des hôpitaux' under Trousseau and Rayer. In 1849 he filled the post of auxiliary physician, under Baron Larrey at the military hospital of Gros-Caillou during an outbreak of cholera.

He continued to devote himself to the study of physiology under the most harassing conditions of extreme poverty, and in 1848, on the foundation of the Société de Biologie, he became one of the four secretaries. In 1852, fearing that his republican principles might bring him into trouble, he left France for America, embarking by choice in a sailing ship that he might have more time to learn English. He supported himself for some time in New York by giving lessons in French, and by attending midwifery at five dollars a case. Here he married his first wife, an American lady, by whom he had one son, and he returned with her to France in the spring of 1853. He again left Paris at the end of 1854, with the intention of practising in his native place, but on arriving at Mauritius he found that the island was passing through an epidemic of cholera. He at once took charge of the cholera hospital, and when the outbreak was 