Person:James Sims (27)

Great grandfather Person:James Sims (26)

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James Marion Sims (January 25, 1813November 13, 1883) was an American physician in the field of surgery, known as the "father of gynecology". His most famous work was the development of a surgical technique for the repair of vesicovaginal fistula, a severe complication of obstructed childbirth. He is also remembered for inventing 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 was instrumental in the creation of the nation's first cancer hospital, which opened after his death.

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 the first American physician to become famous in Europe. He openly boasted that he was the second-wealthiest doctor in the country.

However, as medical ethicist Barron H. Lerner states, "one would be hard pressed to find a more controversial figure in the history of medicine."^[1] A statue in his honor, the first statue in the United States in honor of a physician, was erected in 1894 but removed in 2018.

There are ethical questions raised by how he developed his surgical techniques. He operated without anesthesia on enslaved black women, who, like prisoners, could not meaningfully consent because they could not refuse.^[2][1] In the 20th 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".^[2] He has been called a "butcher" and compared to Nazi physician Josef Mengele. Sims' practices were defended as consistent with the US in the era in which he lived by physician and anthropologist L. Lewis Wall, and other medical historians. According to Sims, the enslaved black women were "willing" and had no better option.^[1]

Sims was a voluminous writer and his published reports on his medical experiments, together with his own 471-page autobiography^[3] (summarized in an address just after his death^[4]), are the main sources of knowledge about him and his career. His positive self-presentation has, in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, been subject to revision.

1. ↑ Dr. Sims is considered to be the "Father of Modern Gynecology" as he pioneered most of the work in his field. A statue is erected in his honor on the Capitol grounds in Montgomery, AL.
   
   His autobiography is entitled, "The Story of My Life", by Dr. J. Marion Sims. In the book he speaks of his Great Grandfather, Sherrod Sims, telling him stories about Sherrod being involved in the "Battle of Braddock's Defeat" in the Revolutionary War