Page 64
“…October 13, 1835…”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 146.
“Their journey took three weeks…”
Sims’s autobiography does not make mention of Halley’s comet on this journey, but the comet had become visible in early August and reached perihelion in mid-November—it would have been most brilliant during Sims’s trek.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 147.
“…confused and delirious.”
Although Sims claimed that his mind was clear two weeks into the disease, he also attested to delirium. I concur with the latter. I contracted malaria in 2019 after traveling to Uganda to attend the opening of the Terrewode Community Women’s Hospital (described in the afterword to the printed book). I had the disease for less than a week before I was hospitalized, for three days. My mind was not clear then, and it was not clear for some weeks after the illness.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, pp. 171, 173.
“It was a strange word…”
This is the earliest appearance of “Anarcha” in anything attributed to Sims. In the one handwritten letter in which Sims names her, which appears later in the printed book, he spells it “Anarca,” and the extra “H” appears only in his autobiography. It was likely added by the man Sims hired to take down the autobiography in interviews, Hiram T. Oatman.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 171.
“…he sought out Dr. Lucas…”
From a speech Sims gave when he returned to Montgomery in 1877. The speech was transcribed and printed in the Montgomery Advertiser, and then included as an appendix in his autobiography.
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 447.
“…had known the young Lucas…”
See “…Lucas failed to appear…,” above.
James Lucas had died less than a year before Sims’s arrival in Mt. Meigs, and Sims would surely have needed to reveal his educational pedigree to the Lucases. He could hardly have disguised the fact that he knew James Lucas. I take Sims’s failure to acknowledge the connection between his friend and the Alabama Lucases in his autobiography as evidence that he withheld his role in the death from them too. Sims never told the story of James Lucas’s death until he wrote this own autobiography—that is, when he was close to his own death.
“…to deliver a memorial lecture…”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, pp. 133-34.
“…a self-congratulatory speech.”
See “Lucas and two other students…,” above.
“Address Delivered at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Febraury 25, 1835, in Commemoration of the Death of James E. Lucas, of Alabama, Robert P. Harris, and Fayette F. Senseny, of Virginia, Late Members of the Medical Class of that Institution,” James S. Bell, Philadelphia: William Brown, 1835, p. 16.
“…probably mulatto.”
See “It was a strange word…,” above.
“Even one quarter black blood…”
It was not well-understood in Sims’s time, but the sickle-cell trait commonly found in West Africa does confer protection against certain kinds of malaria: “Persons who have the sickle cell trait (heterozygotes for the abnormal hemoglobin gene HbS) are relatively protected against P. falciparum malaria and thus enjoy a biologic advantage. Because P. falciparum malaria has been a leading cause of death in Africa since remote times, the sickle cell trait is now more frequently found in Africa and in persons of African ancestry than in other population groups.” . Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “About Malaria: Biology,” last reviewed July 16, 2020.
https://www.cdc.gov/malaria/about/biology/index.html#tabs-1–3.
“Others were dying…”
SIMS, J. Marion, (1885). The Story of my Life, ed. by H. Marion-Sims. D. Appleton & Co: New York, p. 172.