CHILLING DETAILS ABOUT THE FATHER OF GYNECOLOGY
BY MARINA MANOUKIAN/JULY 11, 2022 1:31 PM EDT
A great deal of medical knowledge has historically been amassed through the exploitation of vulnerable people. American doctors learned about STDs through experimenting on imprisoned people and people in psychiatric hospitals in Guatemala and Swedish dentists learned about tooth decay by experimenting on people with intellectual and developmental disabilities at the Vipeholm Mental Institution.
During the period of enslavement in the United States, this was no different, and doctors frequently used enslaved people for their human experimentation. This was largely the case in the field of gynecology, especially after the transatlantic trade of enslaved people ended.
As a result, one man has gone down in history as the Father of Gynecology for the tools and surgical procedures he invented, but these inventions were all at the expense of enslaved Black women, who couldn't consent to or refuse his forced experimentation. And because enslaved people had few options for medical care available, they were often forced to succumb to the forced experimentation. These are some chilling details about the "Father of Gynecology."
WHO WAS J. MARION SIMS?
. . .
After building a private eight-bed hospital in the back of his home, Sims started making a living as a doctor for enslaved people on local plantations, and the Journal of the National Medical Association writes that initially, Sims operated on enslaved Black people without showing any interest in gynecology.
EXPERIMENTING ON ENSLAVED PEOPLE
At his clinic, Sims used enslaved Black people both as workers and for human experimentation. Tragically, few survived the experimentation. According to "Medical Apartheid" by Harriet A. Washington, at least four enslaved people died after being surgically operated on by Sims, including one 19-year-old enslaved person who had bone segments removed without any anesthetic.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
I know it would give me nightmares, IF I could even get through it. 
I've read about a lot of disturbing things, including the Holocaust, but I know this would exceed my limits. I'm really grateful, though, that there are people like Washington and the author of this article who are willing to research and write about this stuff and make people aware of it. All people, even the ones like me who can't handle the details.
