Page 224
“…unaware that he was to be the speaker.”
“He saw Elizabeth Blackwell…”
“…Blackwell’s sister Emily…”
“…inventor of chloroform…”
“…a surgery on the cervical canal…”
“Thomas and Catherine Emmet…”
“…New York’s feuding medical cliques…”
“The size of the crowd…”
“…Stuart would rise to introduce him.”
“…assumed the podium.”
“…unaware that he was to be the speaker.”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 284.
“He saw Elizabeth Blackwell…”
Letter from Elizabeth Blackwell to Emily Blackwell, May 22, 1854—four days after Sims’s lecture. I’m very grateful to Janice Nimura for supplying me with a transcription of this letter, which is held in a private collection.
“…Blackwell’s sister Emily…”
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Emily-Blackwell
“…inventor of chloroform…”
https://www.rcpe.ac.uk/heritage/college-history/james-young-simpson
“…a surgery on the cervical canal…”
Sims would soon follow through on his hope to performs Simpson’s procedure, and Sims’s history with the incision of the cervix would become a significant portion of his practice—although, as will be seen in later chapters, the procedure would soon be discredited.
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 149.
“Thomas and Catherine Emmet…”
“A Memoir of Dr. James Marion Sims,” Thomas Addis Emmet, The New York Medical Journal, January 5, 1884, p. 2.
“…New York’s feuding medical cliques…”
Sims’s autobiography hints at the makeup of the audience, and the tensions in the New York medical world at the time. Sims is couching himself as a peacemaker here, but by the time he was dictating his autobiography he had engaged in a number of high profile feuds, even with his closest colleagues, so even his characterizations here are duplicitous manipulation—an attempt to control his narrative for posterity.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, pp. 286-87.
“The size of the crowd…”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 284.
“…Stuart would rise to introduce him.”
I am elaborating here, slightly, but there can be no other reason why Stuart would fail to introduce Sims.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 284.
“…assumed the podium.”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 285.