British physician who played a major role in establishing pharmacology as a rigorous science. He is best known for his discovery that amyl nitrite relieves the pain of angina pectoris.

Brunton studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and for three years abroad. He returned to London and was associated in turn with the Middlesex (1870) and St. Bartholomew's (1871–1904) hospitals. His most important work is A Textbook of Pharmacology, Therapeutics, and Materia Medica (1885), which was the first comprehensive treatise on pharmacology, emphasizing the physiological actions of pure drugs.