J. Marion Sims

J. Marion Sims
J. Marion Sims, engraving after photograph, ca. 1880
Born
James Marion Sims

January 25, 1813 (1813-01-25)[1]
Lancaster County, South Carolina, U.S.
DiedNovember 13, 1883 (1883-11-14) (aged 70)[2]
New York City, U.S.
Resting placeGreen-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
EducationSouth Carolina College
Medical College of Charleston
Alma materJefferson Medical College
OccupationSurgeon
Known forvesicovaginal surgery
SpouseTheresa Jones
Children9
Relatives
Signature

James Marion Sims (January 25, 1813 – November 13, 1883) was an American physician in the field of surgery. His most famous work was the development of a surgical technique for the repair of vesicovaginal fistula, a severe complication of obstructed childbirth.[3] He is also remembered for inventing the Sims speculum, Sims sigmoid catheter, and the Sims position. Against significant opposition, he established, in New York, the first hospital specifically for women. He was forced out of the hospital he founded because he insisted on treating cancer patients; he played a small role in the creation of the nation's first cancer hospital, which opened after his death.[4]

He was one of the most famous and venerated physicians in the country. In 1876, he was elected President of the American Medical Association. He was one of the first American physicians to become famous in Europe.[5] He openly boasted that he was the second-wealthiest doctor in the country.[6]

However, as medical ethicist Barron H. Lerner states, "one would be hard pressed to find a more controversial figure in the history of medicine."[7] A statue in his honor, the first statue in the United States in honor of a physician,[8] was erected in 1894 in Bryant Park in New York City, but removed in 2018.

There are ethical questions raised by how he developed his surgical techniques.[9] He operated without anesthesia on enslaved black women and girls (who, like prisoners, could not meaningfully consent because they could not refuse).[9][7] In the twentieth century, this was condemned as an improper use of human experimental subjects and Sims was described as "a prime example of progress in the medical profession made at the expense of a vulnerable population".[9][10] Sims' practices were defended as consistent with the US in the era in which he lived by physician and anthropologist L. Lewis Wall,[11] and other medical historians. According to Sims, the enslaved black women were "willing" and had no better option.[7]

Sims was a prolific writer and his published reports on his medical experiments, together with his own 471-page autobiography[12] (summarized in an address just after his death[13]), are the main sources of knowledge about him and his career. His positive self-presentation has, in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, been subject to revision.

  1. ^ Sims 1889, p. 32.
  2. ^ Sims 1889, p. 23.
  3. ^ Kelly, Howard A.; Burrage, Walter L. (eds.). "Sims, James Marion" . American Medical Biographies . Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Company.
  4. ^ "The New Cancer Hospital. Laying the corner-stone yesterday. An address by John E. Parsons—Its patrons and its purposes". New-York Tribune. May 18, 1884. p. 2. Archived from the original on May 4, 2022. Retrieved May 4, 2022 – via newspapers.com.
  5. ^ Alexander, J. Wesley (June 2009). "History of the medical use of silver". Surgical Infections. 10 (3): 289–292. doi:10.1089/sur.2008.9941. PMID 19566416. Archived from the original on July 1, 2022. Retrieved June 5, 2022 – via Gale Academic Onefile.
  6. ^ Grant, Dorothy. (February 3, 2006). "Modern gynecology's cruel founder". Medical Post. Vol. 42, no. 4. Chicago, Illinois. p. 34. ProQuest 228920698. Archived from the original on June 2, 2022. Retrieved May 16, 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference NYT was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ "Here I am again in my beloved Dublin". A Dr. J. Marion Sims Dossier. University of Illinois. 2000. Archived from the original on October 13, 2018. Retrieved March 14, 2017.
  9. ^ a b c Spettel, Sarah; White, Mark Donald (June 2011). "The Portrayal of J. Marion Sims' Controversial Surgical Legacy" (PDF). The Journal of Urology. 185 (6): 2424–2427. doi:10.1016/j.juro.2011.01.077. PMID 21511295. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 4, 2013. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  10. ^ Lynch, Sarah (June 19, 2020), "Fact check: Father of modern gynecology performed experiments on enslaved Black women", USA Today, ProQuest 2414783047, archived from the original on May 29, 2022, retrieved May 16, 2022 – via ProQuest Central
  11. ^ Wall, L. L. (June 2006). "The medical ethics of Dr J Marion Sims: a fresh look at the historical record". Journal of Medical Ethics. 32 (6): 346–350. doi:10.1136/jme.2005.012559. ISSN 0306-6800. PMC 2563360. PMID 16731734.
  12. ^ Cite error: The named reference Story was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wylie was invoked but never defined (see the help page).