Gynecology Invented Through The Torture of Black Women

In the 19th century, the father of modern gynecology, J. Marion Sims, conducted his research experiments on enslaved Black women. Sims performed the invasive and torturous procedures without anesthesia. J. Marion Sims’ justification for choosing not to anesthetize his test subjects was that he did not believe Black women felt pain at all. In an 1857 lecture, he stated that it was “not painful enough to justify the trouble”.

By any objective account J. Marion Sims was a butcher. He performed the most horrific, acts of barbarism on African people. He built a makeshift 16-bed “hospital” to house the slaves that he used as experimental subjects. He operated on one enslaved African woman, named Anarcha, over 30 times. Although Sims never used anesthesia prior to cutting on these women, he often gave them opium following the procedures. After being drugged on opium, they moved very little, which aided their recovery. Sims often made a public spectacle of cutting on these women and did so as demonstrations for other physicians. The other physicians would frequently be called upon to hold the women down as they writhed in pain. On one occasion the physicians observing left the procedure as the cries from the woman being cut upon were so dreadful.

J. Marion Sims is renowned as a surgical genius and is regarded as the father of modern gynecology. He served as president of the American Medical Association, the International Medical Congress and the American Gynecological Society. He is honored by having his name placed on hospitals, dormitories, and endowed chairs. A monument is erected in his honor on the State House grounds in Columbia, SC. The monument reads, “He founded the science of gynecology was honored in all lands and died with the benediction of mankind. The first surgeon of the ages in ministry to women, treating alike empress and slave.