Page 184
“…feuded so fiercely…”
See “Mary R…,” “…pamphlets and handbills…,” and “…no discoverer of anything…,” above.
“…his old professors…”
All three men appear in the 1852 Transactions of the AMA, which can be downloaded from their website.
“The group chuckled heartily…”
There is no account of Sims encountering his old professors at the conference, but it’s highly likely both that he would have seen them there, and that he would have seized the opportunity to tell the story of the cure he was attempting to build his career around (and he would tell it, in full, just two years later). A jocularity of tone is undeniable in Sims’s original depiction of the moment when the air came rushing out of Mrs. Merrill. See “…I am relieved!” above.
“…evidence of the divine spirit…”
See “…a divine mind working through him,” above.
“…Sims did not attend…”
Sims is not listed among those present.
The Proceedings of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama for 1851 are held at the Mobile Medical Museum and Archives in Mobile, Alabama.
“…Dorothea Dix…”
Tiffany, F. (1891). Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix. New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., p. 136.
The Proceedings of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama for 1851 are held at the Mobile Medical Museum and Archives in Mobile, Alabama.
“‘Report on the Diseases…’”
Ames’s paper was printed in the Proceedings of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama for 1851, p. 39, which are held at the Mobile Medical Museum and Archives in Mobile, Alabama.
“They may be crowned with honors…”
I have condensed a significantly longer passage here, written by F.A. Bates.
The Proceedings of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama for 1852, p. 163, which are held at the Mobile Medical Museum and Archives in Mobile, Alabama.
“…disease was the final straw…”
See “Barnum waved a hand,” above. I don’t doubt that Sims was ill, but I believe he used the story of his illness to mask his ambition, which put off some of his colleagues.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, pp. 263-64.
“The colics and dysenteries…”
“Report on the Diseases of Mobile in the Year 1852,” W.H. Anderson and George A. Ketchum, p. 25, printed in the Proceedings of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama for 1852. The document is held at the Mobile Medical Museum and Archives in Mobile, Alabama.
