George Hayward (March 9, 1791 – October 7, 1863) was an American surgeon who achieved groundbreaking techniques in surgery and anesthesia. Hayward practiced at Massachusetts General Hospital and served as Harvard University's first professor of clinical surgery. In 1839, he published the first American case report of a successful surgical closure of a vesicovaginal fistula. In 1846, he performed the second operation in history, and later that year the first major surgery, using ether anesthesia.
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Life and career
Hayward was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 9, 1791. His father, Lemuel Hayward, was a physician. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard College in 1809 and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1812. Subsequently he undertook a tour of European cities and hospitals, studying under the eminent British surgeon Astley Cooper, before returning to Boston to work in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. He went on to become Harvard Medical School's first professor of the principles of surgery and clinical surgery. Peers described him as a self-effacing and taciturn man, and he was not a prolific scholar, publishing only 13 articles in his lifetime, along with a college textbook on physiology that went through at least two editions.
Following in the footsteps of John Peter Mettauer, Hayward performed the first reported surgical closure of a vesicovaginal fistula in North America, performing the operation on May 10, 1839, and publishing a case report later that year in The American Journal of the Medical Sciences. The surgery was a total success. From 1839 to 1851, Hayward operated on nine more women, curing three and improving the conditions of five.