The life and work of Dr. George Byron Hayes, pioneer maxillofacial surgeon

When the First World War broke out in April of 1914, an American dentist practicing in Paris offered his services to the French government. He was Dr. George Byron Hayes, a native of a small upstate New York village and a graduate of the dental school of the University of Michigan. The new type of trench warfare led to facial wounds on a scale never before experienced in any conflict. But the military medical services had no experience or skill in dealing with these new and devastating wounds. Dr. Hayes stepped into the breach and performed such exceptional and often miraculous surgery that he was hailed by the entire Western world. The French government made him a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and the U.S. government awarded him the Distinguished Service Medal, seldom awarded to a civilian. The most prominent surgeon of the day, Dr. Harvey Cushing, brought a team of physicians from Harvard to observe the treatment rendered wounded soldiers in the American Hospital in Neuilly, France, and, in lauding Dr. Hayes' work, stated that his contributions were the most remarkable of all, and that dental surgery should now be recognized as a specialty, the equal of any in medicine.