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“She knew the name printed there…”
Emmet, T. A., & Woman's Hospital (New York, N.Y.). (1893). Reminiscences of the founders of the Woman's Hospital Association. New York: Stuyvesant Press, p. 1. First printed in the New York Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics.
“…a long and elaborate publication…”
The writing of Sims’s seminal paper is described in a later chapter.
“On the Treatment of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula,” J. Marion Sims, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. XXIII, 1852, pp. 59-82.
“…of the AMA in Richmond.”
Sims’s experience at the 1852 meeting of the AMA—when he was still representing Alabama—is described later in The Anarcha Quest. Notably, early in life, Sims was not an enthusiastic participant in medical societies. The fact that he attended the 1852 meeting is evidence that he was seeking to advance his career with his recently published paper.
The full text of the AMA’s annual reports can be downloaded from their website.
“Case of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula—Cure,” Charles Pope, St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 12, p. 403.
“…a fistula case in New York…”
Sims early time in New York is described in greater detail later in a later chapter.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p.269.
“…a hospital devoted to the maladies of women.”
Sims consistently denied that his purpose in coming to New York was to open a hospital. He is duplicitous here in claiming that others gave him “credit” for this. As was the case in Alabama, others worried over his ambition—and even Sims acknowledged what I have Emmet hinting at here.
As will be described in a later chapter, Elizabeth Blackwell proposed a hospital for women in 1851.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 270.
“Catherine had known Sims…”
In having Catherine Duncan providing this recap of events documented above, I am operating under the assumption that it was likely, if not inevitable that she would have been somewhat aware of the details of Sims’s experiments and Anarcha’s enslaved status in the Harris family.
“…the young couple rang Sims’s bell.”
Emmet says very little about this meeting, and I think it’s significant that neither Sims nor Emmet (see “One afternoon, they went for a walk,” above) included it in their later autobiographies. I think it’s natural that Sims would have asked what brought Catherine Duncan north, and that discussion would have turned to the train accident, which was a major news event of the day. As to Sims’s concern about Anarcha, this is more speculative—but very likely. As will be described later, Sims had already begun to conceive of the P.T. Barnum-inspired romantic narrative of his career—with the cured Anarcha as a central figure—when this meeting took place. To learn that the uncured Anarcha was still out there, and could potentially come back to haunt him in New York, would surely have generated panic.
Emmet, T. A., & Woman's Hospital (New York, N.Y.). (1893). Reminiscences of the founders of the Woman's Hospital Association. New York: Stuyvesant Press, p. 1. First printed in the New York Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics.
“A Memoir of Dr. James Marion Sims,” Thomas Addis Emmet, The New York Medical Journal, January 5, 1884, p. 1.
