“Until recently, the medical community and the general public didn’t know that he had developed several of his surgical techniques by operating on unanesthetized, enslaved Black women. Sims’s records suggest there were perhaps a dozen women in total, but we know the names of only three of the women: Anarcha, Betsey, and Lucy. Anarcha alone endured

... See more

“In the mid-1800s, gynecologists experimented with the surgical removal of the clitoris (known as a clitoridectomy) or the ovaries (an oophorectomy) to treat hysteria. Isaac Baker Brown was a well-known gynecologist in England and the president of the Medical Society of London. He recommended clitoridectomy as a treatment for insanity, epilepsy,

... See more