Professor Sauerbruchs Placenta Cream

 

Ad for Hormocenta from Professor Sauerbruch

The second season of Charité about the famed Berlin hospital revolves around the character of Ferdinand Sauerbruch the leading surgeon of his time (brilliantly portrayed by Ulrich Noethen).

His second wife Margot (née Grossman) started to read Medicine after leaving her second husband and then served an internship at Charité where she met Ferdinand. They were married in March 1939. In addition to practising medicine Margot was a businesswoman. As managing director of Pharmazeutischen und Kosmetischen Präperate Böttger Gmbh she marketed a popular skin cream based on a placenta extract. Her famous husband's name featured in the advertisements.

Ad for Hormocenta featuring the
actress Marika Rökk

Placenta extracts in cosmetics were more widespread than I had supposed. Many were based on placental extracts and amniotic fluid of cattle (see here). 

The Surgeon (Ferdinand Suaerbruch)
by Max Lieberman (Wikimedia Commons)

I am watching Charité on Danish television but the first two seasons are available on Netflix. The first season features such luminaries as Rudolf Virchow, Robert Koch (Nobel Prize 1905), Emil von Behring (Nobel Prize 1901) and Paul Ehrich (Nobel Prize 1908).