Monumental Mistake-Sims Was A Monster

Monumental Mistake:

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The patient’s relief was immediate, since the change in air pressure successfully relocated her uterus to its proper position. Sims described the moment as if he’d had a spiritual epiphany. "I cannot, nor is it needful for me to describe, my emotions when the air rushed in and dilated the vagina to its greatest capacity whereby its whole surface was seen at one view, for the first time by any mortal man." His success with this single procedure convinced Sims he could find a surgical remedy for vaginal tears. Finally, he could make a name for himself.

Eager to devote the rest of his life to perfecting the procedure, he built a crude hospital in his back yard that had 16 beds. He also fashioned over 71 surgical instruments.

(Like that movie: "Hostel.")

Plantation owners were happy to turn over their slaves to Sims for experimentation. Between 1846 and 1849, Sims experimented surgically on as many as 11 patients at a time.

Anarcha is believed to have undergone more than 30 operations. Together with two other enslaved women, Betsy and Lucy, they endured repeated experiments at Sims’s hands all the years the backyard hospital was operating.