In the 19th century, vesicovaginal fistulas was a common, socially destructive, and "catastrophic complication of childbirth," that affected many women and had no effective cure or treatment. Vesicovaginal fistulas occurs when the woman's bladder, cervix and vagina become trapped between the fetal skull and the woman's pelvis, cutting off blood flow, leading to tissue death. The necrotic tissue later sloughs off, leaving a hole. Following this injury, as urine forms, it leaks out of the vaginal opening, leading to a form of incontinence where a continuous stream of urine leaks from the vagina, which may lead to marginalization from society, vaginal irritation, scarring and loss of vaginal function. Sims also worked to repair rectovaginal fistulas, a condition where flatulence and feces escapes through the vagina, leading to fecal incontinence.
Obviously a racist monster. /sarcasm
By the time these ‘noble’ protesters are done removing statues they find offensive to them, all we’re going to be left with are a few statues of communist mass murderer Mao Tse-tung.
I don’t know anything about J. Marion Sims, but I do know that a slave has no rights, and slavery is alive and well in the world today. There is no greater evil. We must do our best to eradicate this evil from the earth.
Abstract:
Vesicovaginal fistula was a catastrophic complication of childbirth among 19th century American women. The first consistently successful operation for this condition was developed by Dr J Marion Sims, an Alabama surgeon who carried out a series of experimental operations on black slave women between 1845 and 1849.
Numerous modern authors have attacked Sims’s medical ethics, arguing that he manipulated the institution of slavery to perform ethically unacceptable human experiments on powerless, unconsenting women.
This article reviews these allegations using primary historical source material and concludes that the charges that have been made against Sims are largely without merit.
Sims’s modern critics have discounted the enormous suffering experienced by fistula victims, have ignored the controversies that surrounded the introduction of anaesthesia into surgical practice in the middle of the 19th century, and have consistently misrepresented the historical record in their attacks on Sims.
Although enslaved African American women certainly represented a “vulnerable population” in the 19th century American South, the evidence suggests that Sims’s original patients were willing participants in his surgical attempts to cure their affliction—a condition for which no other viable therapy existed at that time.
Dedicated in 1894, this bronze and granite monument stands on the Park perimeter in honor of Dr. James Marion Sims, a surgeon regarded as the father of modern gynecology. Sims' work is often credited for giving the field status as a separate medical specialty.
He founded the first hospital for women in America in New York City in 1855. In recent years he has become a controversial figure for his use of slaves as experimental subjects. The statue was originally dedicated in Bryant Park and brought to this present site in 1934 across from the Academy of Medicine, of which Dr. Sims was a member.
Location: Perimeter Wall at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street
http://www.centralparknyc.org/things-to-see-and-do/attractions/dr-j-marion-sims.html
In Montgomery between 1845 and 1849, Sims experimented by surgery on 12 enslaved women with fistulas, brought to him by their masters; Sims took responsibility for their care on the condition that the masters provide clothing and pay taxes.[9]
He named three enslaved women in his records: Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy. Each suffered from fistula, and all were subjected to his surgical experimentation.[2] From 1845 to 1849 he experimented on each of them several times, operating on Anarcha 13 times before her fistula repair was declared a success.[7]
She had both vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistulas, which he struggled to repair.[6]
Although anesthesia had recently become available, Sims did not use any anesthetic during his procedures on Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy.[2] According to Sims, it was not yet fully accepted into surgical practice and he was unaware of the possibility of the use of diethyl ether.[6][9]
Ether as an anesthetic was available as early as the beginning of 1842.[9] A review of the ethics of Sims work in the Journal of Medical Ethics stated ether anesthesia was publicly demonstrated in Boston in 1846, a year after Sims began his experimentation, and that while its use as an anesthetic spread rapidly, it was not universally accepted at the time of Sims experiments.[8]
A common belief at the time was that black people did not feel as much pain as white people, and thus did not require anesthesia when undergoing surgery.[10] One patient nearly died from septicemia as he operated on her without anesthetics in the presence of twelve doctors, following the experimental use of a sponge to wipe urine from the bladder during the procedure.[7] He did administer opium to the women after their surgery, which was accepted therapeutic practice of the day.[11]
After the extensive experiments and complications, Sims finally perfected his technique. He repaired the fistula successfully in Anarcha.
His technique using silver-wire sutures led to successful repair of a fistula, and this was first reported in Sims’ published surgical reports in 1852.[1]
He was then able to repair the fistulas of several other enslaved women under his medical authority.[12]
According to Durrenda Ojanuga from the University of Alabama “Many white women came to Sims for treatment of vesicovaginal fistula after the successful operation on Anarcha. However, none of them, due to the pain, were able to endure a single operation.”
The Journal of Medical Ethics reports a case study of one white woman, whose fistula was repaired by Sims without the use of anesthesia, in a series of three operations carried out in 1849.[8]
Sims later moved to New York to found a Women’s Hospital where he performed the operation on white women. According to Durrenda Ojanuga, writing for the Journal of Medical Ethics, Sims used anesthesia when conducting fistula repair on white women.
LL Hall, also writing for the Journal of Medical Ethics, states that as of 1857, Sims did not use anesthesia to perform fistula surgery on white woman, citing a public lecture where Sims spoke to the New York Academy of Medicine on November 18, 1857.
During this lecture, Sims stated he never used anesthesia for fistula surgery “because they are not painful enough to justify the trouble and risk attending their administration”.
Describing this as shocking by modern sensibilities, Hall also describes this as a product of 1800s sensibilities, particularly among surgeons who began their practice in the pre-anethestic era. [8][7][10][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Marion_Sims#Experimental_victims
I’m sure most blacks know the name of...... What was it again?
Sims founded the first Women’s Hospital in the U.S. in 1855, which is now part of St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital. Will they be shutting down St. Luke’s?
What is the REAL reason that the statue was removed? Because his daughter was named Merry Christmas or maybe because his grandson was the architect that designed Mar-a-Lago?
Will the statue of his son-in-law John Allan Wyeth in the Alabama State Capitol be next?