Page 271
“…devised a sponge probang…”
“…shuttling all over the city…”
“The French had pioneered…”
“…severing first one lip…”
“…the removal of a single lip sufficed.”
“…to envision an improved device…”
“…a uterine guillotine…”
“…his guillotine was broken.”
“…a swatch of vaginal tissue…”
“…mutterings of butchery…”
“…outfitted wives with pessaries…”
“…no idea they were being subjected to surgical procedures.”
“…appeal to a husband’s manly spirit…”
“…snapped a catgut guitar string.”
“…devised a sponge probang…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 160.
“…shuttling all over the city…”
Sims would go on to perform as many as a thousand operations of this sort, and, as will be seen later, he would eventually be forced to acknowledge that many of them were unnecessary. The mania for the procedure will also be documented later in the book. See “Every young doctor in the country,” above.
“Résumé on Incision and Division of the Cervix Uteri for Dysmenorrhea and Sterility,” Montrose A. Pallen, The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, Vol. 10, 1877, p. 375.
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 149.
“The French had pioneered…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 209.
“…severing first one lip…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 210.
“…the removal of a single lip sufficed.”
“Forty-Sixth Annual Meeting of the British Medical Assocition,” British Medical Journal, September 7, 1878, p. 366.
“…to envision an improved device…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 209.
“…a uterine guillotine…”
Sims doesn’t explicitly state that the name is a kind of private joke, but it’s typical of his insouciance and insensitivity.
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 224.
“…his guillotine was broken.”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 210.
“…a swatch of vaginal tissue…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 211.
“…mutterings of butchery…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 148.
“…outfitted wives with pessaries…”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 286.
“…no idea they were being subjected to surgical procedures.”
Sims’s classic duplicity—he says he doesn’t do something while in the process of explaining that he has done it, often. In this case, he also suggests that “timid” women are not “rational beings.”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, pp. 147-48.
“…appeal to a husband’s manly spirit…”
Sims used intimidation on men and women both, actually.
“Résumé on Incision and Division of the Cervix Uteri for Dysmenorrhea and Sterility,” Montrose A. Pallen, The American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children, Vol. 10, 1877, p. 376.
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 214.
“…snapped a catgut guitar string.”
Sims, J. M. (1990). Silver sutures in surgery; together with Clinical notes on uterine surgery. Birmingham, Ala: Classics of Obstetrics & Gynecology Library, p. 87.