Léon Louis Rostan (17 March 1790 – 4 October 1866) was a French
internist and a member of the
Académie Nationale de Médecine
Situated at 16 Rue Bonaparte in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the Académie nationale de médecine (National Academy of Medicine) was created in 1820 by King Louis XVIII at the urging of baron Antoine Portal. At its inception, the instituti ...
.
Rostan was born in
Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume
Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume (; oc, Sant Maissemin de la Santa Bauma, links=https://www.google.fr/maps/@43.4574354,5.8556205,3a,51.6y,135.48h,69.75t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sYHiJO3wua5rplRFJ-jGpTQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656) is a commune in the southeastern ...
, and studied medicine in
Marseilles
Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. He was a disciple of
Philippe Pinel
Philippe Pinel (; 20 April 1745 – 25 October 1826) was a French physician, precursor of psychiatry and incidentally a zoologist. He was instrumental in the development of a more humane psychological approach to the custody and care of ps ...
(1745–1826), and for much of his professional career was associated with the
Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.
In 1819 Rostan was the author of ''Recherches sur le ramollissement du cerveau'' (Researches on cerebral softening), in which he provided the first accurate description of spontaneous
cerebral softening
Cerebral softening, also known as encephalomalacia, is a localized softening of the substance of the brain, due to bleeding or inflammation. Three varieties, distinguished by their color and representing different stages of the disease progress, a ...
. He documented that the disorder was a specific anatomo-clinic entity that was different from
encephalitis
Encephalitis is inflammation of the brain. The severity can be variable with symptoms including reduction or alteration in consciousness, headache, fever, confusion, a stiff neck, and vomiting. Complications may include seizures, hallucinations, ...
and
apoplexy
Apoplexy () is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleedi ...
. His findings were harshly criticised by followers of
Broussais' teachings on physiological medicine, who claimed that brain softenings were the result of an
inflammation process, and therefore should be depicted as encephalitis.
He also did extensive research of
animal magnetism
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all livi ...
and
somnambulism
Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism or noctambulism, is a phenomenon of combined sleep and wakefulness. It is classified as a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family. It occurs during slow wave stage of sleep, in a state of low ...
, and wrote a treatise on
charlatan
A charlatan (also called a swindler or mountebank) is a person practicing quackery or a similar confidence trick in order to obtain money, power, fame, or other advantages through false pretenses, pretense or deception. Synonyms for ''charlatan ...
ism for his graduate thesis. Rostan performed early studies on the classification of body types, using descriptive terms such as respiratory-cerebral, muscular and digestive in his analysis.
In 1845, he was elected a foreign member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...
.
Associated eponym
* "Rostan's asthma": Known today as
paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea
Paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea or paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnoea (PND) is an attack of severe shortness of breath and coughing that generally occurs at night. It usually awakens the person from sleep, and may be quite frightening. PND, as well as simp ...
. A type of cardiac
asthma
Asthma is a long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wheezing, cou ...
associated with heart
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
, such as
left ventricular
A ventricle is one of two large chambers toward the bottom of the heart that collect and expel blood towards the peripheral beds within the body and lungs. The blood pumped by a ventricle is supplied by an atrium, an adjacent chamber in the upper ...
failure.
Selected writings
* ''Recherches sur le cerveau du ramollissement'' (1820, translated into German in 1824)
* ''Cours élémentaire d'hygiène'' (1821–22, two volumes)
* ''Traité élémentaire de diagnostic, de pronostic, d'indication thérapeutique'' (1826)
References
Unbound MedlineNeurology in Paris hospitals, particularly the Salpêtrière before Charcot: Rostan on brain softening
* ''Parts of this article are based on a translation of the equivalent article from the French Wikipedia.''
Dorlands Medical Dictionary Pierer's Universal-Lexikon(translated biography)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rostan, Leon
1790 births
1866 deaths
People from Var (department)
French pathologists
19th-century French physicians
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences