Léon Rostan

Léon Louis Rostan (17 March 1790 – 4 October 1866) was a French internist and a member of the Académie Nationale de Médecine.

He was a disciple of Philippe Pinel (1745–1826), and for much of his professional career was associated with the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.

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 and somnambulism, and wrote a treatise on charlatanism 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.