Page 182

“…impervious to anything…”

I’ve somewhat compressed several years of Sims’s experience of New York physicians into a smaller span of time, without, I believe, offending the overall sense of that experience.

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 254.

“What could he give them…”

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 272.

“They traveled to Philadelphia…”

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 261.

“…an agreeable home…”

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, pp. 260-61.

“…the windows and doors open…”

An unsigned letter describing Sims’s home in Philadelphia, dated October 31, 1852, held at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

“Sims still had friends there…”

I believe that Sims, in crafting the romantic narrative of his career, tended to exaggerate the extent of his illness. It’s true that others reported him as appearing unwell, but while Sims said he was on death’s door he was continuing to maintain a full practice. Reports of imminent demise were histrionic and self-serving.

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 260.

“…to learn of a new fistula cure…”

Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 113.

“He found the journal…”

Sims does not mention the episode involving Pancoast at all, which is not surprising as he would characterize his decision to write his VVF paper as a dying man’s last gasp to deliver unto the world the fruits of his efforts. His biographer, Seale Harris, however, makes hay of Pancoat’s paper (without citation). Purportedly, Harris left behind a box (or boxes) of his notes and materials for Woman’s Surgeon, but it appears to have disappeared. I found his family and made every effort to locate those materials, to no avail.

“On the Cure of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula,” Joseph Pancoast, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 35-36, 1847, pp. 397-98.

“…a needlessly complicated ordeal…”

“On the Cure of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula,” Joseph Pancoast, The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 35-36, 1847, p. 397.

“…if Sims did not publish…”

This is how Sims described his rationale for writing his paper when he did. I find it not very credible, and neither did his biographer, who was far more inclined to accept Sims’s exaggerations.

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 259.

“…a friend’s advice…”

The friend was a famous Philadelphia surgeon named Charles Meigs.

Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 113.

“…corrupted by association…”

“The Secret Kappa Lambda Society of Hippocrates (and the Origin of the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics),” Charles T. Ambrose, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, Vol. 7, 2005, p. 53.

“Hays agreed at once…”

Sims’s account of this is notably different from his biographer’s. In omitting the process of having been introduced by a friend, Sims gives the impression that the piece was accepted on its merits rather than coming through back channels. It’s not the most flagrant example of Sims’s duplicity, but it’s a characteristic of almost everything he wrote.

Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 114.

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 259.

“…sat down to dictate…”

Sims and Emmet do not agree about where he was when he dictated the paper, and I have inferred, as Sims did not have a great deal of money at the time, that Theresa would have acted as his secretary. (Notably, in his autobiography, Sims gives the impression that he wrote the paper by hand, himself.)

Sims, J. M., & New York Academy of Medicine. (1858). Silver sutures in surgery. New York: S.S. & W. Wood, p. 61.

“A Memoir of Dr. James Marion Sims,” Thomas Addis Emmet, The New York Medical Journal, January 5, 1884, p. 2.