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“Dr, Sims looked like a young boy…”
Chosen from numerous examples. Almost all descriptions of Sims, particularly from early in life—even Sims’s own—characterize him as boyish or womanly in appearance.
Harris, S. (1950). Woman's surgeon: The life story of J. Marion Sims. New York: Macmillan, p. 104.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 152.
“…didn’t believe in taking blood.”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 175.
“…cured with a knife.”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 209.
“…spiders and worms…”
The episode on the Ashurst plantation is told in greater detail later in the book. It was common for enslaved persons to believe that illness was the result of worms or other vermin trapped in the body.
Narratives of Mary Kindred and an unidentified source. This narrative compiled many accounts collected by the interviewer.
Rawick, G. P., Hillegas, J., & Lawrence, K. (1978). The American slave: A composite autobiography : supplement, series 2. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Pub, Vol. 6, Texas Narratives, p. 2205.
Library of Congress. (2018). Slave narratives: A folk history of slavery in the U.S., Georgia Narratives, Vol. 4, p. 285.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 160.
“…for Mrs. Judkins too…”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 172.
“…cures for malaria.”
Narratives of Lou Smith and Easter Wells.
Sims would not have thought of Anarcha, as a young girl, as a nurse. His autobiography simultaneously says that he had no nurse, but that a “negro girl” sat with him. Anarcha offering him a cure is consistent with Sims’s later account of her skillfulness as a nurse, ten years later. It would not have been in Sims’s interest to suggest that he had received, or been cured by the medicines of enslaved people.
Library of Congress. (2018). Slave narratives: A folk history of slavery in the U.S., Oklahoma Narratives, Vol. 4, p. 305, 321.
“…gave Dr. Sims quinine…”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, pp. 172, 174.
“…his hair fell out.”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 176.