Ernst Ludwig Alfred Hegar

Alfred Hegar (1830 to 1914) was a German physician who became one of the leading gynecologists and obstetricians of the nineteenth century. Born in Bessungen near Darmstadt, he studied medicine at Giessen, Heidelberg, Berlin and Vienna, took his doctorate in 1852 and practised in his home town, where he learned plastic and fistula surgery from Gustav Simon. In 1864 he succeeded Otto Spiegelberg at Freiburg, where he held the chair of obstetrics and gynecology and directed the university women's clinic until 1904. The Neue Deutsche Biographie calls him the founder of operative gynecology: with his pupil Rudolf Kaltenbach he wrote its first textbook. He also promoted aseptic practice in childbirth and fought puerperal fever, helping the teaching of Ignaz Semmelweis to prevail in German obstetrics. His name is attached to the metal Hegar dilators used to widen the cervical canal, to a needle holder, and to the Hegar signs of early pregnancy. Several well known gynecologists trained under him.