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J. Marion Sims 

J. Marion Sims, born James Marion Sims (January 25, 1813 – November 13, 1883) was a surgical pioneer, considered the father of American gynecology. [1] However, modern historians have noted that many of his major contributions were the result of extensive experimentation on slaves.

J. Marion Sims
J. Marion Sims

Contents

Early career

Sims was born in Hanging Rock, South Carolina, son of John and Mahala Mackey Sims. Sims' family spent the first twelve years of his life in the Heath Springs area of Lancaster county. He would later write entertainingly of his early school days, but recalled one occasion when he had to be saved from drowning by fourteen-year-old Arthur Ingram, who lived south of Hanging Rock Creek.

His father, John Sims, was elected sheriff of Lancaster County in 1825 and thereafter took up residence in Lancaster, where the boy, Marion, entered Franklin Academy.

After studying medicine with Dr.Churchill Jones in Lancaster, South Carolina, and at the Medical College of Charleston, he moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1835. He returned to Lancaster to practice, but after the death of his first two patients moved to Alabama.

He returned to Lancaster in 1836 to marry Theresa Jones, the daughter of Dr. Barlett Jones, with whom he had fallen in love while studying at South Carolina College in Columbia. They would return to Alabama together, where in 1845, Marion Sims established a private hospital for women.

Repair of vesicovaginal fistula

Women with vesicovaginal fistulas - usually the result of traumatic labor - were, in those days, social outcasts. No cure was available. In Montgomery, Alabama, Sims treated three Alabamian slave women - Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy - all of whom may have been suffering from fistula problems, to develop new techniques to repair this condition.[2] From 1845 to 1849 he experimented on them, operating on one of them 30 times (it remains unclear if this was needed due to stitching failing or if it was deliberate on Sims part). Although anesthesia had recently become available it was rarely used as yet - whatever the reason, we know he did not use it on the slave women.[2] [1] After the extensive experiments and difficulties, Sims finally perfected his technique and repaired the fistulas. It was only after the success of the early experiments on the slaves that Sims attempted the procedure on causasian women with fistulas, this time with anesthesia.

Sims Speculum
Sims Speculum
In Central Park
In Central Park

These experiments set the stage for modern vaginal surgery. Sims devised instruments including the Sims' speculum to gain proper exposure.[1] A rectal examination position where a patient is on the left side with the right knee flexed against the abdomen and the left knee slightly flexed is also named after him as Sims' position. He insisted on cleanliness. His technique using silver-wire sutures led to successful repair of a fistula, and this was reported in 1852.

New York and Europe

Sims moved to New York in 1853 due to health reasons, where he founded the first hospital for women in America. In 1862, during the American Civil War, he moved to Europe, and worked primarily in London and Paris, and from 1863 to 1866, served as surgeon to Empress Eugénie. Honors and medals were heaped upon him for his successful operations in many countries. Under the patronage of Napoleon III, he organized the American-Anglo Ambulance Corps.

In 1871 Sims returned to New York, and after quarreling with the board of the Woman's Hospital over the admission of cancer patients (which he favored), went on to found a new hospital, later to evolve into the Memorial Center for Cancer and Allied Diseases.

He was planning a return visit to Europe when he died of a heart attack on November 13, 1883 in New York. His bronze statue by Ferdinand von Miller the younger, depicting Sims in surgical wear[3] can be found on the peripheral wall of Central Park, at Fifth Avenue and 103rd Street, opposite the New York Academy of Medicine. Another memorial is on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery. Sims was inducted into the Alabama Hall of Fame in 1953.

Contributions

References

  1. ^ a b c Brinker, Wendy. "James Marion Sims, Father Butcher".
  2. ^ a b Lerner, Barbara (October 28, 2003). "Scholars Argue Over Legacy of Surgeon Who Was Lionized, Then Vilified".
  3. ^ The bronze standing figure is signed "[F. v]on Miller fec. München 1892"; it was first erected and dedicated in Reservoir Square, now Bryant Park, in 1894 and reerected at its present site in 1934 (Text of historical sign).
  1. Washington, Harriet A. "Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present" [1]
  2. Speert H. Obstetrics and Gynecologic Milestones. The MacMillan Co., New York, 1958, pages 442-54.
  3. Spencer, Thomas. "UAB shelves divisive portrait of medical titans: Gynecologist's practices at heart of debate." Birmingham News, January 21, 2006.
  4. Gamble, Vanessa. "Under the Shadow of Tuskegee: African Americans and Health Care". American Journal of Public Health, November 1997, page 1773.
  5. Sims, J. Marion. The Story of My Life. Appleton, New York, 1889, pages 236-237.
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