Morbid Fact Du Jour For January 2, 2009

Today’s Traumatic Yet Truly Morbid Fact!

Women with vesicovaginal fistulas – a passageway from the bladder to the vagina that allows urine to leak through the vagina which is usually the result of traumatic labor – were, in the 19th century, social outcasts. No cure was available. In Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. J. Marion Sims (considered the father of American gynecology) treated three Alabamian slave women – Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy – all of whom may have been suffering from fistula problems, to develop new techniques to repair this condition. From 1845 to 1849 he experimented on them, operating on one of them 30 times (it remains unclear if this was necessary due to stitching failure, or if Sims did it deliberately). Although anesthesia had recently become available it was rarely used as yet; whatever the reason, we know he did not use it on the slave women though he did provide opiates after the surgeries (probably more to stifle their moans than to ease their pain). After the extensive experiments and difficulties, Sims finally perfected his technique and repaired the fistulas. It was only after the success of the early experiments on the slaves that Sims attempted the procedure on Caucasian women with fistulas, this time with anesthesia.

Culled from: Wikipedia
Generously submitted by: Twisted Princess

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Sims is memorialized with a statue in Central Park (which some people want removed – though I think that covering up the mistakes of the past is always worse than discussing them). I think a far better solution than removing Sims’ statue would be to put up another statue in honor of Anarcha, Betsy, and Lucy, and their far greater contribution to medical science.

Image culled from EastHarlem.Com