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LOOK BACK DOCTOR
Dr. J. Marion Sims honed his surgical skills on unanesthetized female slaves
ACCORDING TO medical history, Dr. J. Marion Sims is often considered the "founder of modern gynecology." His achievements include being responsible for the first use of a vaginal speculum, commonly known as the Sims' speculum. The original was the bent handle of a pewter spoon.
There are, however, many people, and especially some feminist writers, who insist Dr. Sims is no medical hero. They label him a cruel racist who, for several years during the mid-184Os, without anesthesia, conducted surgical experiments on slave women in his backyard hospital in Montgomery, Ala. What is ironic about Dr. Sims becoming involved in what was once known as "disorders peculiar to women" is that in his autobiography he wrote: "If there is anything I hated it was investigating the organs of the female pelvis."
At this time, black women slaves (and white women) who had protracted deliveries were often left with devastating vesico-vaginal fistulas. Slave owners were furious when this happened since it affected a woman's ability to work and, because she smelled of urine and feces, she became a virtual outcast. This meant these women no longer gave birth to children their owners could sell, nor were they any longer suitable to provide sexual services to the men who owned them.
Dr. Sims's destiny with medical history is traced to 1845, when he was summoned to a plantation outside of Montgomery. A young woman named Anarcha, one of 75 enslaved Africans living there, had been in labour for three days. Although Dr. Sims...