Who was James Marion Sims?

Mr. Sims was a 19th-century physician who gained notoriety by inventing the speculum, a tool that gynecologists use while conducting exams. He also performed the first successful surgery on a woman suffering from the Vesicovaginal Fistulas. Mr. Sims is hailed as the “Father of Gynecology,” for his accomplishments.

What the history books will not tell you about Mr. Sims.

Before Mr. Sims conducted his first surgery, his credentials consisted of him taking a three-month medical course and was a student at Jefferson Medical College for one year. He started his medical practice in Lancaster, South Carolina. After the death of Sims’ first two patients, he decided to move to Montgomery, Alabama, for a fresh start. Before Sims shifted his focus to gynecology, he was a primary care physician on a slave plantation. The plantation is where he began treating black infants with “trismus nascentium,” which is now called neonatal tetanus. His experiments often failed, and the outcome of his trials was multiple deaths of black infants.

In 1845, Sims performed his first surgery on a patient with Vesicovaginal Fistulas. Sims built his own “hospital” in his backyard, where he conducted all of his experiments. Slave owners were happy to send their ailing female slaves to Sims because a lot of the women were incapable of working while suffering from Vesicovaginal Fistula.  Sims, like countless other doctors, had a racial bias belief that black people could not feel pain.  Sims conducted these excruciating surgeries, without giving the enslaved women any anesthesia. We know the names of three women who were victims of Sims experiments: Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey.  Lucy was one of the first victims of Sims experiments. The surgery Sims conducted resulted in her getting blood poisoning and being on the brink of death. Sims wrote in his journal, “I thought she was going to die… It took Lucy two or three months to recover”. This incident did not put an end to Sims experiments, as he continued to perform his surgeries with no reluctance. Sims performed 30 surgeries within four years on Anarcha before he finally discovered the cure to Vesicovaginal Fistula. A reminder that Anarcha was not administered any anesthesia during these surgeries. We also must acknowledge the other women whose names were not recorded but were victims of Sims experiments.

J. Marion Sims statue was erected in 1939 (81 years ago), in front of the Alabama State Capital building in Montgomery. The fact that Alabama is honoring a man who committed these unethical crimes against black women and children is repugnant.  America is in a time of reconstruction, and we need to take steps as a community to bring unity between all people.

When we commend Mr. Sims for his discoveries and honor him with statues or with buildings named after him, it is a brazen slap in the face to the women and children whom Mr. Sims conducted these unethical and inhumane surgeries. We are calling a man, “Father of gynecology,” who once said, “If there is anything I hated, it was investigating the organs of the women’s pelvis.” Sims was not a doctor. He was a mad scientist who poked and probed inside enslaved women and children with no regard for their pain and no value for their lives. He should not be revered nor immortalized. In 2017, New York City took down the J. Marion Sims Statue from Central Park. Join in me petitioning the Alabama Committee on Monument Placement and Governor Ivey to tear down the Statue in Montgomery. Let us come together and change the culture of not just the state of Alabama, but lead the charge for Racial Equality and Unification in the United States of America.