Biography 

Georges Hayem is the son of Flore Abraham (1817-1878) and Simon Hayem (1811-1895); his brothers are Charles Hayem , Armand Hayem and Julien Hayem (1847-1932). His father, who had created a large trading house in the Sentier district , encouraged him to follow the commercial route to prepare his succession. After his years of primary schooling, he entered Bonaparte high school in order to pursue business studies. But he was very quickly attracted to the sciences: he received a Bachelor of Science in 1861 and enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine.

Major of day school, in November 1862, he passed the internship competition in 1863 and he was assigned to Bicêtre . The1 ^st January 1865, he entered the Enfants Malades then Lariboisière before becoming the intern then the assistant of Alfred Vulpian at the Hôpital de la Salpêtrière . His Gold Medal in boarding school allows him to complete two additional years in the Auguste Ambroise Tardieu service . He is defending his doctoral thesis in Medicine with the title Studies of the various forms of encephalitis (Anatomy and physiopathology) , the May 15 , 1868. In 1872, he was received at the aggregation by supporting two theses: Bronchitis (general pathology and classifications) (1869), Intra-spinal hemorrhages (1872). In 1872, he was admitted to the Central Office of hospitals. After a stint at the Hôpital de la Charité , where he is deputy for Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud . Finally, he obtained the post of head of service at Saint-Antoine hospital where he remained for thirty three years. He directs the Revue des sciences médicale in France and abroad 2 . He is a member of the Biological Society 3 .

In 1879, at the age of 37, he was appointed to the Chair of Therapeutics and Medical Matters at the Faculty of Medicine in Paris. For 15 years his teaching will be based on personal experimental research and clinical observations. His work on blood transfusion in 1881 marked an important stage in the history of this therapy and the name of Georges Hayem remains attached to this method.

It was with difficulty that he succeeded in being awarded an experimental laboratory worthy of the name, while for many years he conducted his research in precarious conditions. In 1879 and 1880, he continued at the Maison-Alfort Veterinary School , with Gustave Barrier 4, experiments on blood coagulation .

In 1893, he obtained the chair of Medical Clinic, then installed at the Necker Hospital and he succeeded in having it transferred to Saint-Antoine: "He waited several years for the constructions which made it a model clinic, with its private laboratories and its own amphitheater connected to the sick rooms ” wrote Paul Busquet, in the biography he devoted to him.

The January 5 , 1886, he was elected member of the Academy of Medicine in the therapeutic section. The November 19 , 1911, struck by the age limit, when he abandoned his service as a Medical Clinic, his colleagues, his students, his friends met at the amphitheater of the Clinic to give him his medal performed by Paul Roger-Bloche 5 . In 1917, he became vice-president of the Academy then president the following year.

He was the first president and founder of the French Society of Hematology in 1931.

Tomb of Georges Hayem in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

He dies on August 28 , 1933in his home in the 16 ^th  arrondissement of Paris 6 and is buried in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise ( 7 ^th  division).

Scientific work 

Georges Hayem's work is considerable, particularly in the field of hematology . "If the birth of the clinic is contemporaneous with the arrival of doctors on the hospital scene, it is still necessary to wait a few years for the experimental method to leave the physiology laboratory to become the tool for understanding diseases and of therapy. It is at this essential moment in the history of medical thought that Lessons on the modifications of the blood of Georges Hayem, published in 1881, are given. With G. Hayem, an explanation of the modes of action of therapy and a new discipline, hematology, which is organized from a scientific object: blood ” 7 .

It was he who first described in 1877 the erythroblast "  in adults, red blood cells are generated by hematoblasts  " he wrote 8 ; he then studied coagulation, which he made known in important memoirs published in 1878 9 and 1879 and his name remains attached to the physiology of hemostasis , with the "platelet nail of Hayem" or coagulation time 10 . In 1889, he published a volume entitled Blood and its anatomical alterations  : in this work, he wrote: "The future belongs to hematology: it is this which will bring us the solution of the great nosological problems". Subsequent research confirmed the merits of his work.

The work on the nervous system is experimental, anatomo-pathological and clinical: it deals with encephalitis, cerebral softening, myositis, muscular atrophy…

The digestive system was also one of the concerns of Hayem and his students: he published his observations in an important work, which was taken up in the Treatise on Medicine and Therapeutics in 1897, with the collaboration of his pupil Gaston Lion, then reissued in 1913 11 . Finally, mention should be made of his publications on liver diseases: cirrhosis, jaundice, hepatitis, etc.

The nickname "Dr cholera", which was sometimes attributed to him, is linked to the unexpected successes he obtained in the treatment of this condition by fighting against dehydration by intravenous injections at the time of epidemics 12 .

"His life was a model of hard work, insight and scientific conscience: he is one of the most original and remarkable figures among the doctors of our time" wrote Professor Albert Dastre in 1911 in his praise of Professor Hayem.

The name Hayem was given in 1935 in place of Doctor Hayem in the Muette district of Paris. The Leukemia Research Institute at Saint-Louis Hospital has been named after 1960.T