IN 1898 hemolytic icterus was first established as a clinical entity by Hayem.1He stated that, aside from the types of chronic jaundice caused by obliteration of the bile duct or compression by tumor and by hypertrophie biliary sclerosis, there were other types of the disease that were but little understood. He then described 5 cases of icterus with very large spleens and a marked chronic anemia, the red cells varying in number from 2,493,000 to 632,000 per cu.mm., and he classified this variety as of a markedly hemolytic type (une maladie fortement déglobulisante) with crises of varying intensity and duration. Bile pigment was present in the blood serum, but not in the urine, and the itching and clay-colored feces, found in other types of icterus, were lacking. He proposed to name the disease “chronic infectious splenomegalic jaundice of a paroxysmal type.”