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“…experience with chloroform…”
I am assuming that a letter from Gross would have spoken of Bozeman’s work with chloroform during his three years of working for Gross (see “…delivered the anesthesia…,” above). As will be seen later, Sims would prefer ether to chloroform, and would suffer significant embarrassment over chloroform in 1861. Sims’s defenders have argued that Sims’s having been positioned in Alabama means that he would likely have been unaware of the most recent advances in anesthetics. This is patently false—the subject was being widely discussed in the medical world, and Sims had access to many medical journals. To top it off, Bozeman became his assistant, and had extensive experience with chloroform.
“Something afflicted him.”
The dates become difficult to untangle. Sims claimed that he cured Anarcha in May or June of 1849, and Bozeman indicates that he arrived in Montgomery and was thrown into business with Sims in June 1849. If Anarcha had still been at Sims’s clinic when Bozeman arrived, Bozeman surely would have reported meeting her—he didn’t. I am assuming that Sims’s collapse, such as it was, had commenced by the time of his hiring of Bozeman.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 248.
“…he maintained a practice…”
Too many examples to cite at length, but Sims would report a great deal of travel, and a great deal of medical work, during the period when he also claimed to be on death’s door.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 260.
“…quack water cures…”
See “…a sulfur spring in Butler County…,” above.
“…a prodigious, lithe intelligence…”
Bozeman would certainly be counted in this group (so would I).
“J. Marion Sims—Pioneer Cancer Protagonist,” Hayes Martin, Harry Ehrlich, and Francelia Butler, Cancer, March 1950, p. 193.
“…likely to be difficult…”
As will be seen, Bozeman immediately began to suspect that the procedure was more difficult than Sims was telling the world, and he would devote great energy and resources to making sure the world knew this to be the case. Alas, his voice and warnings went mostly unheard.
Bozeman, N. (1884). History of the clamp suture of the late Dr. J. Marion Sims, and why it was abandoned by the profession, pp. 1-2.
“…the Sims position was required at all…”
See “…unable to bear the knee-chest position…,” above. Early on, Bozeman saw or heard of successful procedures without the knee-chest position, which turned out to be unnecessary if you were not using an anesthetic (and perhaps not even then).
Bozeman, N. (1884). History of the clamp suture of the late Dr. J. Marion Sims, and why it was abandoned by the profession, pp. 21, 31, 37.
“…a chair or a rest…”
As will be seen shortly, Bozeman would soon invent such a chair.
“…the blade of Sims’s speculum…”
Bozeman, N. (1884). History of the clamp suture of the late Dr. J. Marion Sims, and why it was abandoned by the profession, pp. 27, 28, 41.
