Page 49

“…a public operation for osteosarcoma…”

Williams, S. W., & Thacher, J. (1845). American medical biography, or, Memoirs of eminent physicians: Embracing principally those who have died since the publication of Dr. Thacher's work on the same subject, p. 605.

“Wagner’s knife work…”

Williams, S. W., & Thacher, J. (1845). American medical biography, or, Memoirs of eminent physicians: Embracing principally those who have died since the publication of Dr. Thacher's work on the same subject, pp. 603, 606.

“…irritation and inflammation…”

Annual Announcement of the Trustees and Faculty of the Medical College of the State of South Carolina for the Session ’40-’41, p. 7. The Annual Announcement is held at the Waring Historical Library in Charleston, South Carolina.

“…a host of surgical procedures…”

Annual Announcement of the Trustees and Faculty of the Medical College of the State of South Carolina for the Session ’40-’41, pp. 7-10. The Annual Announcement is held at the Waring Historical Library in Charleston, South Carolina.

“…in the dead house…”

SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 119.

“…the ways in which American physicians could distinguish themselves.”

Sims’s interior musing here is summarizing many of the motives and influences of his life until this point. Although Sims would never have expressed himself publicly in this way, it is consistent with the forces of his life and the thrust of his education. The conclusion of the monologue—aspiring to surgery without willing patients—is exactly what he will attest to in one of his first publications, in an episode that appears later in the book.

“Osteo-Sarcoma of the Lower Jaw. Resection of the Body of the Bone,” J. Marion Sims, The American Journal of the Medical Sciences, Vol. 11, 1846, p. 128.

“A secret society, Kappa Lambda…”

Although Sims never mentions the Kappa Lambda secret society in any of his writings, the timing of his medical education, the fact that the society emerged from medical schools, and the fact that the society was “outed” in 1831, just as Sims was beginning to consider medicine as a career, make it very unlikely that he was unaware of the movement. Indeed, as I suggest later in Say Anarcha, it is much more likely that he was part of an equally secretive attempt to damage the careers of those who had been part of the movement.

See “The Secret Kappa Lambda Society of Hippocrates (and the Origin of the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics),” Charles T. Ambrose, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, Vol. 7, 2005, pp. 45-56.

“…launched in 1819…”

“The Secret Kappa Lambda Society of Hippocrates (and the Origin of the American Medical Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics),” Charles T. Ambrose, Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, Vol. 7, 2005, p. 46.

“…to advertise their services.”

In 1859, an elaborate letter was sent to Sims’s colleague, Alexander Stevens, in New York. The letter was signed by “Sholto Douglas” (or “Shol to Dhu Glas”), which I believe translates to something close to “Dark Knight.” The letter attacked Stevens’ prior association with the Kappa Lambda society, which had since lost a great deal of influence, but the pamphlet included some of the early accounts of the 1831 “outing” of the Kappa Lambda membership and reveals what figures like Sims would have thought of the organization’s motives. Sims’s complaints about ethics and medical advertising was a lifelong preoccupation, and is further described later in the book.

I found a copy of the letter at the National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes for Health in Bethesda, Maryland. It is also available online at https://archive.org/details/9716177.nlm.nih.gov.

“Some Account of a Secret Society in New York, Entitled the ‘Kappa Lambda,’ in a letter to Alexander Stevens, M.D., LL.D.,” p. 8. 

“…to afford the leisure…”

“Some Account of a Secret Society in New York, Entitled the ‘Kappa Lambda,’ in a letter to Alexander Stevens, M.D., LL.D.,” pp. 13-14. 

See “…to advertise their services,” above.