Page 117
“…file past the hanging sheet…”
See “…little better than a slave cabin…,” above.
This is Robert Thom’s painting of Sims, as included his book. The painting is currently held at the University of Michigan.
Parke Davis & Company Bender GA Thom RA. A History of Medicine in Pictures. Place of publication not identified: Parke Davis; 1960.
“…again deliver his speech…”
See “…the speech itself was an experiment…,” above.
“…for all American doctors…”
Particularly after he moved to New York, Sims attempted to blunt criticisms about his own ambition by self-identifying as an American surgeon who could bring renown to all of American medicine. There was concern about his ambition even in Alabama (See “Zimmerman protested,” above), so it’s virtually certain that Sims would have been employing this argument a few years earlier.
“A Case of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula, Resisting the Actual Cautery for more than Seven Years—Cured in Thirteen Days by the Author’s Process,” J. Marion Sims, New York Medical Times, Vol. 3, No. 8, May 1854, p. 267.
“Dr. Sims’s young medical students struggled…”
Although Sims did not specifically address the difference the quality of care between his male assistants during the Alabama fistula experiments and the subjects of the experiments themselves after they took over the nursing duties (though his “cure” was effected only with their assistance), he did, some years later, express a notable distinction between male and female nurses.
“Lady Nurses at the Seat of War,” Unsigned, Once a Week, No. 151, November 19, 1870, p. 352.
“Lecture on Vesico-Vaginal Fistula,” Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. XVIII, July 1875, No. 2, p. 57.
“…a sharp whimper from Lucy…”
Although Sims did describe black women in pain on other occasions, he did not describe Lucy’s pain on the occasion of her first surgery (decades later, his autobiography would describe how she subsequently almost died). Sims’s biographer claims that Lucy had been given opium during the procedure—Sims himself does not make this claim.
Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 74.
“…every previous doctor had failed…”
See “There had been occasional cures,” above. This was a much more common formula for Sims—to claim that there had been no serious advance in fistula work, despite the cures he was well aware of.
“Two Cases of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula, Cured,” New York Medical Gazette and Journal of Health, Vol. 5, No. 1, January 1854, p. 1
“…instead of the twenty minutes…”
Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 88.
“On the Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula,” J. Marion Sims, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. XXIII, 1852, p. 76.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 237.
“…as Dr. Sims had said they would be.”