“…putting them back together again.”
“…he could use the young slave…”
“…brought the body back to Montgomery.”
“…had begun to glue the wounded parts…”
“…the frontier of abdominal surgery…”
“…the remainder of the fistulous slaves.”
“…about half the time.”
“…he had achieved a success…”
“He sent Anarcha…”
“…he took on an assistant…”
“…of the famed Dr. Samuel Gross…”
“…opposites in every other way.”
“…putting them back together again.”
See “…could bring men back to life…,” above.
“…he could use the young slave…”
See “…a puncture to the boy’s left side…,” above.
“…brought the body back to Montgomery.”
Sims, J. M., & New York Academy of Medicine. (1858). Silver sutures in surgery. New York: S.S. & W. Wood, p. 41.
“…had begun to glue the wounded parts…”
Sims, J. M., & New York Academy of Medicine. (1858). Silver sutures in surgery. New York: S.S. & W. Wood, p. 41.
The image of the intestines of the young, enslaved man who was stabbed that appears in the printed book first appeared in this same text, on p. 40.
“…the frontier of abdominal surgery…”
Sims, J. M., & New York Academy of Medicine. (1858). Silver sutures in surgery. New York: S.S. & W. Wood, p. 58.
“…the remainder of the fistulous slaves.”
In typical fashion, Sims’s accounts of the weeks following his first success are completely contradictory.
Sims, J. M., & New York Academy of Medicine. (1858). Silver sutures in surgery. New York: S.S. & W. Wood, p. 41.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 248.
“…about half the time.”
Sims is not a reliable source in reporting the success of the fistula experiments. Bozeman is a more reliable source, though he had his motives, too.
Bozeman, N. (1884). History of the clamp suture of the late Dr. J. Marion Sims, and why it was abandoned by the profession, p. 3, ft.
“…he had achieved a success…”
Sims’s biographer does not explicitly state that he covertly let slip his “success” with Anarcha. This sequence, however, is very much consistent with other facts Sims did not acknowledge at the time: he needed additional fistula subjects, and he was soon experimenting on additional women, both white and black.
Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 99.
“He sent Anarcha…”
It is worth nothing that in 1884 Bozeman was still unaware of the extent of Anarcha’s injury. Sims’s autobiography was not published until the following year. Even though Bozeman arrived before Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy were “cured,” he was never able to examine them.
Bozeman, N. (1884). History of the clamp suture of the late Dr. J. Marion Sims, and why it was abandoned by the profession, p. 19.
“…he took on an assistant…”
Bozeman is writing of himself in the third person.
Bozeman, N. (1884). History of the clamp suture of the late Dr. J. Marion Sims, and why it was abandoned by the profession, p. 3, ft.
“…of the famed Dr. Samuel Gross…”
Gross’s Elements of Pathological Anatomy (1839) had established his reputation, and was consulted by Sims himself.
“James Berney,” Emmet B. Carmichael, Alabama Journal of Medical Science, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1969, p. 233. A copy is held by the UAB Archives, University of Alabama, Birmingham, in Birmingham, Alabama
“…opposites in every other way.”
Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 104.