'Father Of Modern Gynecology' J. Marion Sims Performed Dangerous Experiments On Enslaved Black Women Without The Use Of Anesthesia

[Sugar Cookie]

In 2018, after a series of protests, New York City's Public Design Commission voted unanimously to remove a statue of J. Marion Sims from Central Park.

Sims has gone down in history as the "Father of Modern Gynecology." He developed a surgical technique for the repair of vesicovaginal fistula, a severe complication of obstructed childbirth. He also invented the Sims speculum, a surgical instrument used for examining the vagina and cervix, the Sims sigmoid catheter, a thin tube used to aid the removal of uterine tissue among other functions, and the Sims position, a posture used for rectal examination, treatments, enemas, and examining women for vaginal wall prolapse.

But many of his achievements came at the cost of the health and well-being of Black women. In recent years, his troubling history of medical experimentation on enslaved Black women has come into question.

While Sims occasionally conducted experimental surgery on white women, his main subjects were a group of enslaved Black women with fistulas (an opening between the vagina and the bladder or rectum) who were offered by their slave owners under intentionally loose contracts in the 1840s.

These procedures were performed without anesthesia, often repeated several times, and never involved consent from the patients — stripping these women of any freedom to govern their own bodies. One subject, a woman by the name of Anarcha, was operated on 30 times before the repair of her fistulas was declared a success.

During some occasions, Sims would administer opium to his enslaved subjects after their surgical procedures to immobilize them and keep them from resisting, which may have been seen as an acceptable therapeutic practice at the time.

In the 19th century, many men of medicine held the racist belief that Black people held a higher pain threshold than white people. Some believe that may have been the basis for Sims' experimentation on enslaved Black women, however others point out that Sims was aware that his patients were in pain. When recounting one of his procedures on Lucy, an enslaved Black woman who was operated on without anesthesia, Sims wrote in his autobiography, "I thought she was going to die … it took Lucy two or three months to recover entirely." Historian Julia Axelrod wrote, "'Sims failed utterly to recognise his patients as autonomous persons."

Race-based physiological myths have long influenced medical practice. In fact, a 2016 study involving 222 white medical students and residents found that half held false physiological beliefs about African American patients. Nearly 60% thought their skin was thicker, and 12% thought their nerve endings were less sensitive than those of white people. Another 2007 study found that relative to other racial groups, physicians are twice as likely to underestimate Black patients' pain. Perhaps as a consequence, Black patients receive less pain treatment than their white counterparts.

Sims' influence on modern gynecology has contributed to a history of unequal reproductive medical care for Black women. After his death, researchers used the cervical cancer cells of Henrietta Lacks without permission or compensation. In 1961, a doctor performed a hysterectomy, known then as a "Mississippi appendectomy," on Fannie Lou Hamer, sterilizing her without her knowledge or consent.

As enslaved Black women were considered to be the property pf their owners, and therefore did not have their own rights of refusal, Sims' experimented on Black women in order to improve gynecological outcomes for white women.

In his personal memoir, "The Story of My Life," Sims wrote that without the ability to perfect his techniques on Black women, whom he describes as being "the very bottom," he could not have later ascended his practice to the aristocratic families, "the upper crust," of Montgomery.

Black women created opportunities for Sims, granting him access to a higher class of clientele, solidifying his medical reputation, and opening the door to career opportunities in the field of medicine. Yet the health and well-being of Black women continues to be systematically neglected, today just as it was then.

'Father of Modern Gynecology' J. Marion Sims performed dangerous 'experiments' on enslaved Black women without the use of anesthesia

His actions are a part of a troubling history of medical experimentation on Black Americans.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[Crazy Cat Lady]

That statue really needs to come down. He used Black women for his own horrific purposes and he doesn’t deserve any kind of adulation or respect.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

"Race-based physiological myths have long influenced medical practice. In fact, a 2016 study involving 222 white medical students and residents found that half held false physiological beliefs about African American patients. Nearly 60% thought their skin was thicker, and 12% thought their nerve endings were less sensitive than those of white people. Another 2007 study found that relative to other racial groups, physicians are twice as likely to underestimate Black patients' pain. Perhaps as a consequence, Black patients receive less pain treatment than their white counterparts."


MLK Day is a good time to take one of our own assumptions out and take a critical look and see if it's based in reality or something else.

I'd ALWAYS assumed the Catholic Churches stance on contraception meant that poor Hispanic immigrants would be more adherent to the precepts of the church and account for a high number of births here in the U. S.

So I forced myself to take a look today.
Not true. That rate has declined 9%, it's Asian immigrants whose birth rate has increased, by 5%

So it looks like I can't blame the Catholic church for anything.

Well, I can, but not Catholics.

The view in my town was that Catholics were superstitious, irresponsibly reproducing papists who didn't care if the sermons were in Latin and they didn't understand them, they were awed by shiny things and did what they were told.

Not a very nice thing that I had assumed. (my father was Catholic, which, for being Austrian, seemed strange).

There's no shame in learning you held incorrect ideas.
It's wrong to insist on keeping them after that. *

That statue really needs to come down. He used Black women for his own horrific purposes and he doesn’t deserve any kind of adulation or respect.

There should be no special statue.

Here's a translation of a part of the Hippocratic Oath, around since 245 A. D.

You did a good thing here today @Sugar Cookie, much respect to you. *



(* You all saw me change part of my view right here. Didn't hurt at all. Immigrant Hispanics and Sugar Cookie aren't particularly concerned about my thoughts, it only makes my life better to learn where I'm mistaken and adjust. Oh, I'm aware it's self-interest, not noble at all, lol, I'm not trying to pretend otherwise. Adjusting to new information should be as normal and humdrum as switching from air-con to heat in the winter. )

 

[Josh P]

it's Asian immigrants whose birth rate has increased, by 5%

I'm not surprised, they'll hand you a condom to use with a hole in it, that they put there.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

I'm not surprised, they'll hand you a condom to use with a hole in it, that they put there.

Good Lord @Josh P!
You say awful things and I laugh out loud.

But on a more serious note, you should only attend BYOC events.

I do not know how men can ever have a good time with that looming.
The possibility of pregnancy exists for every sexual encounter but as a woman you can prevent that from happening almost entirely.
For a man? Unless you guard that condom from start to flush, and even THEN you've got leakage, breakage, etc, etc., that's so risky. And depending on someone else to be perfect with their method? Oh this is all a nightmare.
Perfect use of condoms? 98% effective. Real life 87%.

So for every 8-9 times you have sex, you run the realistic chance of impregnating someone.

That's awful.

 

[Josh P]

Good Lord @Josh P!
You say awful things and I laugh out loud.

But on a more serious note, you should only attend BYOC events.

I do not know how men can ever have a good time with that looming.
The possibility of pregnancy exists for every sexual encounter but as a woman you can prevent that from happening almost entirely.
For a man? Unless you guard that condom from start to flush, and even THEN you've got leakage, breakage, etc, etc., that's so risky. And depending on someone else to be perfect with their method? Oh this is all a nightmare.
Perfect use of condoms? 98% effective. Real life 87%.

So for every 8-9 times you have sex, you run the realistic chance of impregnating someone.

That's awful.

It's a serious comment. International child support is a thing. If they think you have money, they are looking for a deposit. There is also companies that specialize in selling vacations to the United States for pregnant ladies, where it is timed so they give birth here.

 

[Symmachus]

Wow, that's horrible. Inhumane, certainly.

One thing I will say is that I did not previously know that human pain tolerance was racialized, and that black people were/are, due to this, known for having "an increased pain tolerance". I also cannot help but wonder if the Tuskegee Experiment took cues from Sims' practice.

You know whom else did something similar? Josef Mengele, for the Nazis. Had a weird obsession with twins, too. This song by Slayer is about him.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

International Child support? Did not know that.

Bloody hell, here it is, the Hague Child Support Convention

"The Convention of 23 November 2007 on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (HCCH 2007 Child Support Convention) and the Protocol of 23 November 2007 on the Law Applicable to Maintenance Obligations (HCCH 2007 Maintenance Obligations Protocol) seek to establish a modern, efficient and accessible international system for the cross-border recovery of child support and other forms of family maintenance. This specialised section contains a range of information on the Convention and the Protocol, including their full texts, current status, explanatory documents and other materials which will assist those working with these instruments."

Participating countries:

So @Josh P , one of those trips to the Phillipines didn't have a happy ending?

Funnily, I knew an Hungarian woman who immigrated to theU. S., is a citizen, and went to San Pedro, CA, one fateful night where she met a Filipino charmer who worked on a cruise ship and they struck up a romance.
They dated. He asked her to marry him. He was her first love. She thought he was glamorous, working on a cruise ship, solid, and he would be her husband.

He would hit her up during his frequent travels to that port in Long Beach (I guess it's called the Port of Los Angeles.)
You can guess where this all goes...

Thru no pinholes poked by her, she got pregnant.

In the 2 years I knew her, the product of that unintended pregnancy, her son, went from 6 to 8 years old.
She was a shy and small, delicate woman, 5'0" probably.
Her son was rambunctious, a dark blond kid, talkative, grew to be 4'6" by 8yo, and she was sweet and patient.

I knew he was problematic, I'd seen him misbehave.

One week I had some tomato plant cuttings for her, she was trying to grow a little food outside the single garage they rented as their home, and she and her son stopped by on their bicycles to pick them up, plus some other things I wanted to give her that she needed.

We'd only chatted about 15 seconds out there on the sidewalk, when the kid, 8 years old by then, looked at me, said -
"Shut up you fucking bitch"
-and then punched his mother in the face. Hard.
And then smiled at me like he'd done something good or funny.

Oh, her face, my friends face.

This time she couldn't tell me her black eyes and bruises were from a bike accident, or bumping into something.
The look on her face when she half turned back to me, when she knew there hadn't been a miracle and I'd seen, I knew now, that look was the saddest sadness you have ever seen.

There's little point in telling you my reaction to him. It didn't matter then, it doesn't matter now.

What haunts me that never, ever, had it ever occurred to me that this child, her son, was abusing her. Hardly believable is it? As I write this it doesn't seem possible.

Every job she got, she lost because the school would call her to pick him up.
She was finally compelled to take him for counseling and then on to a child psychiatrist and he was diagnosed as being a psychopath.


She was so proper, but the poverty she was battling every day, all day long? There are differences in poor. And those are seen at the edges, you have to live there, and by there, I mean the world of poverty, to recognize those.
To some of you, being deprived means not being able to afford a modest carpet cleaner, to others, it means not being able to afford a broom. If you think I'm joking, then you're lucky.

She always wore a clean dress, faded from a hundred hand washings and sun drying, cut her own hair, had his cut at a low cost barber, because that's important for a little boy going to school, sometimes grown a tiny bit long between cuts. She had no extra things like earrings or lipstick, but she had a straight posture she took pride in-it mattered.
Resourceful home repairs to the bikes, hand-hemmed pants for her son.
She always carried a used book they gave away at some food pantries, to improve her English for her and her son, that she read when she waited for hours in food lines, holding onto that precious bike of hers.

(They only take 20 - 40 a day at food banks, one visit per month only. The waiting list in Long Beach for Section 8? 20 years. She got food stamps and Medi-Cal. That is it.
Don't anyone repeat that "welfare" myth to me, or buying alcohol with food stamps, I know better. )

She'd been waiting for her child support agreement to be enforced for years.
Rode her bike the office to enquire regularly and they put her off every time.
Even though he still came into port, nothing was happening it seemed.

I saw her a week after that happened, she was coming to the food bank that was next door, and a friend and I had gotten info collected, were ready, and went to talk to her.

We said "Marika, you HAVE to do something about ______. He's going to keep hurting you, and eventually, others. We've seen you injured, cut, bruised, even limping once, this won't be OK."

She said "He's my son, I love him. I don't want him to be put in a institution, a hospital. I don't know what they'll do to him and it scares me." (Hungarian accent, and me paraphrasing)

(Let me add, it wasn't because of that sweet, sweet extra $80 in food stamps he brought in. She LOVED her child.)

Me: " But there are nice places... he needs this chance... no shame... .... You can visit... This IS helping him.... "

My other friend finally looked at me and said "Come on Blundy. She's not going to listen, she's made up her mind, let's go."

I didn't want to, but we left and I looked back once, hoping she'd be waving me back to ask about the info we'd gathered.
She wasn't.
She was looking down at the sidewalk, holding her bike, wearing that same clean old-fashioned brown dress I always saw her in, the one that was so thin you could see the sunlight thru iy, and it was the saddest sadness I'd ever seen.



Anyway, that's my Asian pregnancy story.
I moved shortly after and never saw her again. My friend did, once, riding her bicycle on the busy cross street at the end of our block.

Until you told me about this @Josh, I'd always assumed it was
a pipe dream for her, but maybe, maybe, she did get that child support?
I hope everything turned out alright for her, for them. But you know what? Sometimes things don't turn out OK.
And there's nothing anybody can do about it.

It made me feel luxuriously fortunate to remember Marika.
And sad. But not her kind of sadness. I'm lucky.


So, @Josh P BYOC . Everyone should, male and female.
Wear them both.



(This all reminds me of a movie where the domestic situation.. I'll go ahead and post it over in movies, I don't want to impose on this thread.
It's called The Strange Things About the Johnsons)

 

[Josh P]

She was so proper, but the poverty she was battling every day, all day long? There are differences in poor. And those are seen at the edges, you have to live there, and by there, I mean the world of poverty, to recognize those.
To some of you, being deprived means not being able to afford a modest carpet cleaner, to others, it means not being able to afford a broom. If you think I'm joking, then you're lucky.

For me and the filipina I talk to, I'd be on a video while I'm doing laundry. She would see me put the clothes in the machine and push the button. When she did laundry, I'd watch her drag out the washboard and do a lot of manual labor. What made me feel guilty is one time when we were talking, I was heating up beef stew and rice. I used an electric can opener and the expression on her face made me realize how good I have it, even when I'm struggling to pay the bills.

So, @Josh P BYOC . Everyone should, male and female.
Wear

You bring your own, cause anything sold at the 7-11 there will be way too small. You definitely do not want to skip on it, cause 2/3 the tourists that visit southeast Asia is specifically for sex. Birth control pills is a relatively new concept to them, the church put up a massive campaign fight to have them banned. I think 2012 or so is when they were first available. They don't believe in divorce either.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

For me and the filipina I talk to, I'd be on a video while I'm doing laundry. She would see me put the clothes in the machine and push the button. When she did laundry, I'd watch her drag out the washboard and do a lot of manual labor. What made me feel guilty is one time when we were talking, I was heating up beef stew and rice. I used an electric can opener and the expression on her face made me realize how good I have it, even when I'm struggling to pay the bills.

All those things, yes.
The electric can-opener, when I think of it, especially.
A whole machine! To open a can!

You bring your own, cause anything sold at the 7-11 there will be way too small.

You get an eye roll for that one, lol

You definitely do not want to skip on it, cause 2/3 the tourists that visit southeast Asia is specifically for sex. Birth control pills is a relatively new concept to them, the church put up a massive campaign fight to have them banned.

Never go to a medical facility with a St. before the name and ask for birth control.

I think 2012 or so is when they were first available.

That's shocking. I was unaware of that.

https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/04/health/philippines-birth-control/index.html

They don't believe in divorce either.

My father was excommunicated when he became divorced.


If you don't already know of him, learn a little about Dr. Jose Rizal.
The anniversary of his execution in 1898 by the occupying Spaniards was just recently, on December the 30th. It'll impress your friend if you know a little bit about him

He also said this:
"He who does not love his own language is worse than an animal and smelly fish."

Lol

 

[Josh P]

You get an eye roll for that one, lol

Seriously, they don't sell them with a drawstring, you gotta get the ones that fit and you may not find them on the shelf. Better to be prepared.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

Seriously, they don't sell them with a drawstring,

"Lambskin condoms are used the same way as latex condoms, but instead of an elastic ring at the base, lambskin condoms have a drawstring to secure them."


Alright. I've learned quite enough from you today.

 

[Josh P]

"Lambskin condoms are used the same way as latex condoms, but instead of an elastic ring at the base, lambskin condoms have a drawstring to secure them."


Alright. I've learned quite enough from you today.

The more you know....

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

The more you know....

This bit of info is really more like a sinister implant that will make you twitch your head uncontrollably when you see a sneaker commercial.


Here's my anticipated thought process if I saw this unnerving procedure happening in a darkened hotel room....

*groggy tequila- filled worry* Is he tying on a penis? What's it made of?! I'll ask and then tell him I'm allergic to that. What if it's one of those geoduck clam things?!? Where did I put that switchblade I bought from the horse painted like a zebra ?
Oh, God, why didn't I tell anyone I was going to Tijuana? *



You just reduced your 0.1% chance of seeing anyone here naked to 0.0%

 

[Josh P]

You just reduced your 0.1% chance of seeing anyone here naked to 0.0%

I never thought the odds were that good, and that isn't the reason I visit the site. If it ever happened, cool. If not then I didn't set unrealistic expectations.

 

[Blunderbuss Firozabad]

I never thought the odds were that good, and that isn't the reason I visit the site. If it ever happened, cool. If not then I didn't set unrealistic expectations.

Only as one example, there was a gent here, went by @Craygor that I believe a few of us wouldn't have minded seeing in the naw, so we are wise to the wisdom of not dipping below our 0.1% chances of possibilities.
It's like pinning bus money to your bra.

Don't worry, we have short memories, you can get back to that.
Bear in mind though, I decide none of this, no one cares what I think, and it's completely made up.

 

[Josh P]

It's like pinning bus money to your bra.

Is that what the signs are about at the gas stations around here? They say we do not accept sweaty boob money.