This is how the "Father of Gynecology" was born
By Meg Schmidt
It happened in the spring of 1845, in the heart of Alabama, in the middle of the Westcott estate.
Anarcha was giving birth.
It was not an easy birth. Anarcha was a slave woman and her body was made to work. A hard life can cause your body to shrink and become anarchy. Ricketts' pelvis had become distorted, making it nearly impossible to deliver the baby she was trying to bring into the world.
When John went to Marion Sims, she had given birth three days ago.
We know a lot about John Marion Sims. Today in America we can be treated in hospital wings named after him. We can visit any of the three statues of him and see what he looks like. Long eyebrows, frown lines and deep set eyes. He was holding his hand over his heart as if emotional.
We know nothing about Anarcha. We don't know where she came from or the shape of her face. We know she is seventeen years old.
He decided to use iron forceps to get Sims Anarcha's baby out - he had no previous experience with it. Sims never mentions whether the child lived or died in his writings, but apparently encouraged the practice and tried to repeat it for other slaves. However, each of these attempts resulted in the infant's death. (Sims blamed all these deaths not on his own use of the device, but on the innate stupidity of the slave mother.)
You'll wish it was all over. You wish Anarcha some peace. But after all this was done, Anarcha was brought back to see Sims, still suffering from her painful wounds.
Today, the diagnosis of “vesico-vaginal fistula,” simply described as an unhealed tear in the vagina from childbirth, is usually given to patients living in third-world countries. A patient with that injury is not only in constant pain but also torture. There is no way to keep clean, stop the smell or prevent infection. Thousands of women live like this, ostracized from friends, family, their husbands and loved ones. Although medical treatment was provided then, tears can be treated very easily today.
But not only was there no treatment at that time, but the study of gynecology had just begun. A male physician examining the anatomy of a living female patient—only male physicians—was considered highly inappropriate. This meant that there was no clear understanding of how menstruation occurred or how to solve many of the basic gynecological problems that are easily cured today. (Several solutions to the problem were proposed: for example, a doctor was allowed to gouge out the eyes and lift up the patient's skirt for examination. The results were nothing to write medical letters about.)
When Anarcha was brought back to Sims a few days after giving birth, Simms was distraught when she was in pain and unable to work.
He instructed her to sit on a table outside the clinic. For him she stretched out her legs and performed his examination. Anarcha was told that she had a vaginal injury and that Sims was going to fix it. Don't mistake this for any kind of congratulations from The Sims. He had a rare opportunity - to be able to perform an experimental operation on a patient who had no choice but to consent. By curing such fistulas, his career will rise. It will change the world.
Let's imagine the woman lying on her back with her legs crossed and receiving gynecological treatment. However, this is a technique developed by doctors in the 1940s and 50s to facilitate medical assistance. When Sims examined Anarcha, she was on all fours on his wooden examination table. He performed the first fistula operation without anesthesia or explanation of his actions. Sims believed that minorities, including Irish women, were naturally immune to pain and had no such need for anesthesia. Although he believes that he writes that Anarcha screamed.
This was Anarcha's first of more than thirty surgeries, and as time passed, the fistulas did not heal, and others joined her. Sims operated on twelve other women, but we only know the names of two others: Betsy and Lucy. Sims developed a makeshift hospital for these women, who often served to care for each other without other care. Sims was allowed access to opiates during recovery, but considered that food and water hindered the healing process. For two weeks after the surgery, they received enough nutrition to move.
Sometimes other doctors came to visit the hospital. Sometimes they help hold the anarchy during surgery. At other times they withdrew in fear and disgust.
In the end, Sims succeeded. He healed Anarcha and others and soon became famous for his work. He traveled the country and treated white women who could not tolerate the pain of surgery and administered ethyl. Today he is known as the "Father of Gynecology".
#blurt #survived #srilanka #anarcha #anesthesia #thirty