George Haas a German medical doctor was born in Nuremberg, Germany. Haas performed the first human hemodialysis

Hemodialysis

In medicine, hemodialysis is a method for removing waste products such as creatinine and urea, as well as free water from the blood when the kidneys are in renal failure. Hemodialysis is one of three renal replacement therapies .Hemodialysis can be an outpatient or inpatient therapy...

 treatment. Haas studied medicine at the Universities of Munich and Freiburg. He wrote his doctoral thesis while attending the institute of the famous pathologist Ludwig Aschoff

Ludwig Aschoff

Karl Albert Ludwig Aschoff was a German physician and pathologist. He is considered to be one of the most influential pathologists of the early 20th century and is regarded as the most important German pathologist after Rudolf Virchow.Aschoff was born in Berlin, Prussia...

.

Scientific work

Haas performed the first human hemodialysis in the history of medicine in 1924 in the town of Giessen, Germany. The procedure lasted only 15 minutes, and hirudin served as the anticoagulant

Anticoagulant

An anticoagulant is a substance that prevents coagulation of blood. A group of pharmaceuticals called anticoagulants can be used in vivo as a medication for thrombotic disorders. Some anticoagulants are used in medical equipment, such as test tubes, blood transfusion bags, and renal dialysis...

. Haas was able to develop a dialyzer consisting of U-shaped collodion tubes immersed in a dialysate bath placed in a glass cylinder. He performed several hemodialysis

Hemodialysis

In medicine, hemodialysis is a method for removing waste products such as creatinine and urea, as well as free water from the blood when the kidneys are in renal failure. Hemodialysis is one of three renal replacement therapies .Hemodialysis can be an outpatient or inpatient therapy...

 procedures in uremics between 1924 and 1928, and reported for the first time the clinical results obtained. In 1928, Haas introduced heparin

Heparin

Heparin , also known as unfractionated heparin, a highly sulfated glycosaminoglycan, is widely used as an injectable anticoagulant, and has the highest negative charge density of any known biological molecule...

 into the dialysis

Dialysis

In medicine, dialysis is a process for removing waste and excess water from the blood, and is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function in people with renal failure...

procedure. Because of lack of support by the medical community, Haas was forced to discontinue his promising work.

Quotes

“From the initial idea to the actual realization of the dialysis method, it was a very long way. I would have to say, it was the way of the Cross....”(1928)