Léon Gosselin

Léon Athanase Gosselin was a French surgeon, born in Paris in 1815 and died in 1887, remembered for describing the Gosselin fracture in 1866. He studied medicine in Paris and became prosector to the medical faculty in 1842. In 1843 he defended his doctoral thesis on the interarticular fibrocartilages, and the next year he gained his aggregation in surgery with a thesis on strangulation in hernias. He rose through the Paris faculty: first chair of external pathology from 1858 to 1866, the fourth chair of clinical surgery at the Pitié hospital in 1867, and the third chair of clinical surgery at the Charité from 1867 to 1884, where he was chief of surgery. He also taught at the École supérieure de Pharmacie. He excelled in orthopedics, anatomy, physiology and urology, and his research on diseases of the testicles, spermatic cord and scrotum and their effect on fertility and virility makes him a pioneer of andrology.