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Carl Siegmund Franz Credé was born in Berlin on 23 December 1819. 1 His parents were French, his father holding a senior position in the Ministry of Health and Education. After attending the Friedrich-Wilhelm Gymnasium, Credé studied medicine at the University of Berlin, although he also spent a few months in Heidelberg where Naegele was Professor of Obstetrics. After graduating in 1841 at the age of 22, he visited clinics in Belgium, Paris, Vienna, and Italy, before returning to Berlin to become assistant to Von Busch, the Professor of Obstetrics. Five years later in 1849 Credé was appointed lecturer in obstetrics. His ability as a teacher was soon apparent and in 1852 he was made director of the Berlin School of Midwives and Chief Physician to the Charité Hospital (fig 1 ). There he was the first in continental Europe to establish a separate department of gynaecology. It was at this time too that he described in 1854 the method for delivering the placenta that is still known by his name. 2
Credé's method of expressing the placenta 3
"Failing natural discharge of the placenta . . . in numerous cases, without exception, successful expulsion of the placenta has been obtained within a quarter or half an hour after the birth of the child, by massage through the abdominal wall around the fundus and body of the uterus - gently at first and gradually increasing in pressure, thus producing an artificially stimulated powerful contraction. When this is at its height I grasped the uterus so that the head lay in the palm of the hand and the fingers and thumb lay along the sides of the organ, exerting a gentle and outward pressure. In each case I felt the placenta slide out of the uterus from...