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He Was Long Held In Esteem For Inventing Much Of The Foundation For Modern Gynecology

For over a century, J. Marion Sims boasted a sterling reputation. Born in 1813 in South Carolina, Sims opened one of the first women's hospitals in history, invented the speculum, published the first textbook on gynecological surgery, and earned the title "Father of Modern Gynecology." Sims also served as president of the American Medical Association, was the personal doctor of an empress, and gave expert medical advice after President James A. Garfield was shot.

In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, though, medical professionals and historians began to question the ethics of Sims's experiments, which placed slave women under the knife without anesthesia, even after it was widely available.

In His Writing, Sims Documented The Pain He Caused His Slave Patients

While Sims has been memorialized with numerous statues, his descriptions of medical experiments on slave women, performed without anesthesia, are difficult to read. In his first surgical case, Sims operated on a young slave named Lucy. He wrote:

That was before the days of anesthetics, and the poor girl [Lucy], on her knees, bore the operation with great heroism and bravery. I had about a dozen doctors there to witness the series of experiments I expected to perform... At the end of five days [Lucy] was very ill. She had fever, frequent pulse, and real blood-poisoning, but we did not know what to call it at that day and time.

During the operation, Sims intentionally left a sponge in Lucy's bladder, but it became dangerously infected. Sims recalled, "Lucy's agony was extreme... I thought she was going to die."