Education
He studied medicine at Caen, and afterwards in Paris at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and at the Hôtel-Dieu.
He studied medicine at Caen, and afterwards in Paris at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes and at the Hôtel-Dieu.
He made important contributions in the fields of pathological anatomy, physiology, comparative pathology and parasitology. He became an interne of medicine in 1813, and in 1818 earned his medical doctorate. Later he became a physician at Hôpital Saint-Antoine (1825), and at the Hôpital de la Charité (1832), and was also a consultant-physician to King Louis-Philippe.
In 1837 Rayer discovered that the fatal equine disease known as glanders was contagious to other species including humans.
Between 1837 and 1841 he published a three-volume book on diseases of the kidney titled Traité des maladies des reinsurance In 1850 Rayer published a work that provided the first comprehensive description of anthrax.
In this treatise he documented studies he performed with physician Casimir Davaine (1812-1882) in regards to Bacillus anthracis. He maintained friendships with several influential people in France.
Including naturalist Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, novelist George Sand, philosopher Émile Littré, and several disciples of Henri de Saint-Simon.
Rayer"s disease: A disorder characterized by chronic jaundice, splenomegaly, and hepatomegaly. Rayer"s nodules: An xanthoma. Yellowish nodules on the skin (often on the eyelids).
French Academy of Sciences. Académie Nationale de Society Française Médecine Légale.
