In his writing, Sims recalls how the women were held down by either each other or his assistant and butchered without anesthesia or consent. It’s worth noting that full anesthesia wasn’t widely used before the Civil War, but ether would have been available to Sims. He declined to use ether because, like many physicians of the era, he believed that the sensation of pain was bound primarily to race and, secondarily, to class.
I know that black and brown bodies have been brutalized and experimented on in the name of science since forever (Tuskegee experiments, birth control testing in PR), but I did not know about this. I am horrified. Take it down. We don’t need to celebrate another racist “hero”. Those poor women.😔