On this day in 1813, the so-called "father of modern gynecology", J. Marion Sims, was born.
Sims gained fame from developing a surgical repair of vesicovaginal fistula. And he developed these techniques from human experimentation on enslaved black women.
Sims gained fame from developing a surgical repair of vesicovaginal fistula. And he developed these techniques from human experimentation on enslaved black women.
Sims's career started as a "plantation physician", performing operations on slaves. It was through this route that he was brought a woman with vesicovaginal fistula, and decided he could treat it.
Sims performed multiple operations on multiple enslaved women, with audiences of other physicians. These vaginal surgeries were performed without anaesthesia.
In the course of his experimental surgeries, one woman, Lucy, almost died from sepsis, as he had left a sponge inside her urethra and bladder.
Another woman, Anarcha, was operated on up to 30 times.
Another woman, Anarcha, was operated on up to 30 times.
The women who were subjects of Sims's experimental surgeries did not consent. They could not consent. At the time of Sims's experiments, anaesthesia did exist, but was not used on these women.
As well as performing experimental vaginal surgery on enslaved black women, Sims also experimented on enslaved babies with neonatal tetanus. His experimental procedures for moving the babies' skull bones, which he believed were out of alignment, had a 100% mortality rate.
Now, when we talk about Sims, we should contextualise his actions and methods in the time and place. And in the Antebellum South, human experimentation on enslaved people was a feature, not a bug. Access to these people was advertised as a benefit to training and working there.
It was not uncommon for experiments to be carried out on enslaved people, in this particular time, and in this particular place.
Sims is famous for human experimentation on enslaved women because he gained his fame off the back of doing this.
Sims is famous for human experimentation on enslaved women because he gained his fame off the back of doing this.
After developing his techniques by performing experimental surgeries on enslaved black women without using anaesthesia, Sims went on to have a lucrative and illustrious career, treating wealthy white women.
One of his most famous patients was Empress Eugenie of France, whose fistula he reportedly repaired.
(note: it's disputed that he performed the surgery on her, or there was ever anything wrong with her - it may have been a cover for his exchanging information with her; they were both Confederate sympathisers and this occurred during the Civil War)
Sims's later career included removing the ovaries of women to "treat" epilepsy and hysteria, and performing clitoridectomies, along with fistula surgery.
Again, to contextualise Sims's actions, clitoridectomies and oophorectomies were popular treatments.
That, once again, does not make any of this acceptable, or something which we should fail to acknowledge.
That, once again, does not make any of this acceptable, or something which we should fail to acknowledge.
Some defend Sims's operations on enslaved black women by saying that vesicovaginal fistula is a painful and humiliating condition they *wanted* fixed.
To this we ask: lots of women wanted it fixed. Why didn't he perform his experiments on Empress Eugenie?
To this we ask: lots of women wanted it fixed. Why didn't he perform his experiments on Empress Eugenie?
Why did he persist in experimental surgery on enslaved black women, when his earlier attempts on white women had to be stopped because they were in too much pain?
It is vital that we acknowledge Sims's legacy of human experimentation on enslaved black women, rather than adding it as a footnote or simply describing him as a "controversial" figure.
One can trace a line from Sims's legacy, and other experiments performed on black people to medical racism which persists to this day. Nothing is gained by ignoring this chapter of history.
There is greater awareness of Sims's legacy of human experimentation on enslaved black women. The image at the top of the thread is from a protest against a statue of him in Central Park, NYC. The statue has now been removed.
However, there are still memorials. There is a hospital named after him in South Carolina. He is recognised in the Alabama Hall of Fame.
But when you think of the "father of modern gynaecology", think instead of Anarcha, Lucy, Betsy and the other enslaved women whose names we do not know, who he experimented on to gain his fame.
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