Memorial Sketch of the Life 
of J. Marion Sims, M. D. 
BT 
W. GILL WYLIE, M. D. 
REPRINTED PROM 
2Tl)f Wrto York jfttrtitcal journal 
for April 12 and 19, 188 I}. MEMORIAL SKETCH 
OF THE 
LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M.D 
BY 
W. GILL WYLIE, M.D 
REPRINTED FROM 
THE NEW YORK MEDICAL JOURNAL FOR APRIL 12 AND 
19, 1884. 
NEWYORK: 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
1, 3, and 5 BOND STREET. 
1884. MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE LIFE 
OP 
J. MARION SIMS, M: D * 
Mr. President and Gentlemen : I am happy to say 
that I)r. J. Marion Sims has left an autobiography of several 
hundred pages, giving a full account of his life and work 
up to 1863 ; and that he left in manuscript a revised and 
more or less completed work on “ The Surgical Diseases of 
Women,” both of which are soon to be published. What I 
have to say to-night, up to the time when I first met Dr. 
Marion Sims in 1868, has been taken directly from the 
manuscript of his autobiography. 
In his autobiography, after some preliminary remarks, 
he begins: “Itis a trite saying, that ‘every life is a poem, 
be it long or short.’ Mine has been a real romance, full of 
incident, anxiety, hope, and care; some disappointments 
and many successes, with much sickness and sorrow; but 
it has also been full of joy, contentment, and real happiness. 
“I was born in Lancaster County, S. C., January 25, 
* Read before the Medical Society of the County of New York 
January 28, 1884. 4 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OE THE 
1813, about ten miles south of the village of Lancaster, 
a mile or more west of the old wagon road from Lan- 
caster to Camden. The ancestors of my father, John Sims, 
were of the English colonists of Virginia. My mother, 
Mahala Mackay, was the daughter of Charles and Lydia 
Mackay, of Scotch-Irish origin. The family came to Amer- 
ica about 1740.” Lancaster at this time was a small vil- 
lage of about one thousand inhabitants, the county-seat of 
a farming district about twenty-five miles square. It was 
an out-of-the-way place, twenty-five miles from the nearest 
village. Dr. Sims says: “My father, feeling the want of 
an education himself, was determined to educate his chil- 
dren, and so he began with me at a very early age. He 
then kept a little store, about a mile north of Hanging- 
Rock Creek, on the road leading to Lancaster, This was in 
1818. Mr. Blackburn, a Scotchman, had just opened a 
school in a log cabin in the old field very near the ford of 
this creek.” It was here the doctor received his first lessons. 
He relates a little incident that took place when he was 
about eight years old, which to me, knowing him as I did, 
is very significant. He was asked by an old friend of his 
father’s to give the proper name of a certain weed. His an- 
swer caused the old gentleman to say: “ I would advise you 
hereafter, and lay it up in your memory, as long as you live, 
never to presume to express an opinion on any subject un- 
less you are informed on that subject.” 
The doctor says: “ I was never so mortified in all the 
days of my life. I was exceedingly mortified, and lam sure 
that I have thought of Mr. Patterson a thousand times since 
then. When I have been called upon to give an opinion 
and didn’t feel competent to give it, I have profited by 
the advice he then gave me.” Of this I am certain, for 
Dr. Sims was very non-committal on all doubtful points, 
but was very definite, clear, and firm about what he did life of j. Marion sims, m. d. 
5 
know. In 1825, when twelve years old, he went to Lan- 
caster village, where his father had moved the previous year, 
and this same year the Franklin Academy was inaugurated at 
Lancaster; he attended school here for five years, and it was 
here that he met Theresa Jones. He became sincerely at- 
tached to her, and, long before they were engaged, she was 
a great influence in his life, and, together with his mother, 
who was a sincere, good woman and devoted mother, had 
much to do in establishing his good habits, noble senti- 
ments, and high moral character. He was not noted at 
school, but was known as a bright, genial fellow. 
In 1830 he entered the South Carolina College at 
Columbia, S. C. He says: “ When I went there I was 
one of the best boys in the world. I do not know that 
I had a single bad habit. I didn’t swear, I didn’t drink, I 
didn’t gamble; indeed, I had no vice that could be called a 
vice. I was such a good boy that my mother certainly ex- 
pected me to be a Presbyterian clergyman.” Having en- 
tered as a Junior, he graduated from South Carolina Col- 
lege in December, 1832. He says of himself: “I never was 
remarkable for anything while I was in college except good 
behavior. Nobody ever expected anything of me, and I 
never expected anything of myself. I felt really sorry that 
the time was drawing near when I would have to assume the 
stern duties and responsibilities of real life and of man- 
hood.” At this time he was desperately in love, but was 
too poor to marry, and did not care to take up a profession. 
His father wished him to study law, but they finally agreed 
on medicine, and, when twenty years old, he began to read 
medicine under Dr. Churchill Jones. He remained with 
Dr. Jones for a year. Dr. Jones was a good surgeon, and 
it was here that Dr. Sims imbibed a desire to distinguish 
himself in surgery. 
In November, 1833, he left for Charleston, S. C., to 6 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
attend medical lectures at the Charleston Medical College. 
He was by no means precocious; at this time he was a 
beardless youth of twenty, and he says of himself: “ I had 
failed in my duty as a student in my college course at Co- 
lumbia; I was now determined to reform my methods. I 
had to prepare for a period that I had looked forward to 
not with pleasurable anticipation, but with dread. Most of 
the young men whom I had associated with all my life had 
looked forward to manhood with joy and satisfaction, but 
with me it was exactly the reverse. I was afraid to be a 
man; I was afraid to assume its responsibilities, and thought 
that I did not have sense enough to go out into the rough 
world to make a living as other men had to do. I was 
small in stature, and I did not feel that I had intelligence 
enough to grapple with or to pit myself against such oppo- 
sition as I should encounter in life. So when I went to 
Charleston I went to work in real earnest.” He remained 
in Charleston till spring. 
October 1, 1834, he left home for Philadelphia, to at- 
tend lectures at the Jefferson Medical College. Here, as in 
Charleston, he devoted himself to his work, but did not dis- 
tinguish himself in any way. In both places he boarded 
with families in which there were refined young ladies, and 
did not lead a wild life as a medical student. He graduated 
at the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia on the Ist 
of March, 1835. He says at this time: “I felt absolutely 
incompetent to assume the duties of a practitioner. . . , 
When I graduated, I presume I could have gone into the 
dissecting-room and cut down upon any artery and put a 
ligature around it, but I knew nothing at all about the prac- 
tice of medicine. I had had no clinical advantages, no hos- 
pital experience, and had seen nothing of sickness.” 
He went home in May, 1835, his father rented him an 
office, and he began the practice of medicine, in Lancaster LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
7 
village. After waiting about two weeks be had his first 
patient—a case of cholera infantum. The child died. In 
two weeks after this he was called a second time, and again 
to a child with cholera infantum. He made up his mind that 
if this child died he would quit the town; and when it did 
die, a few days later, he took down his sign and prepared to 
go West. He was disgusted with medicine, and, if he had 
had money, he would never have given another dose. He 
says: “On the 13th of October, 1835—and the thirteenth, 
by the way, has always been a lucky day with me; and so 
has Friday; I was born on Friday . . .—I started for 
Alabama.” 
By chance he met some people that he knew, and he 
settled down in Mount Meigs, a small cross-roads place about 
twenty miles from Montgomery, Ala. He bought out one 
of the two doctors in this place and began practice. His 
first case of importance was one that had been seen by seven 
or eight doctors from all sections, but was not helped by 
any of them. Dr. Sims diagnosticated abdominal abscess, 
was bold enough to open it and let out the pus, and the 
man recovered. In a year’s time he had a good country 
practice. In September, 1836, he was dangerously ill with 
malarial fever. The doctor wished to bleed him, but he 
would not let him, for he did not believe in it. This was 
his first serious illness. He never bled, and gave but little 
medicine. 
Dr. Sims was married, on the 21st of December, 1836, 
to Miss Theresa Jones. In January, 1837, with his wife, he 
returned to Mount Meigs, and had a fair country practice. 
In 1838, Dr. Blakey, living about ten miles distant, in 
Macon County, offered Dr. Sims a partnership in a large 
practice among rich plantations. He accepted the offer, 
bought a little land and put up a double log cabin, and 
soon had a good practice. The first two of his children 8 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OE THE 
were born in this cabin. At this time he says of himself: 
“ I am an example of a man who has never attained the am- 
bition of his early life. My successes have been in a direc- 
tion that I never dreamed of when I started. I felt no par- 
ticular interest in my profession at the beginning of it apart 
from making a living; I worked at it earnestly, and at the 
end of five years I had become quite a respectable physi- 
cian, and, I can truly say, quite a successful one. Still, I 
was really ready at any time and at any moment to take 
up anything that offered, or that held out any inducement 
of fortune, because I knew that I could never make a fortune 
out of the practice of medicine. I, of course, never dreamed 
of anything more than a living and a local reputation.” 
About this time he agreed to quit medicine and go into 
a clothing house, but the scheme fell through, and he kept 
at his practice. In 1839 he had as much as he could at- 
tend to. 
In July, 1840, he nearly died of congestive chills, and 
determined to move to a more wholesome neighborhood. 
On the 13th day of December, 1840, he moved to Mont- 
gomery. 
He says: “The year 1840 was a memorable era in my 
life, and seemed to be a turning-point in my career. For 
the first five years of my professional life, 1835 to 1840, I 
was willing to turn aside to do anything to make money. 
But when I went to Montgomery I gave away my dog, sold 
my gun, and I have never loaded or fired a gun since. I 
devoted myself to my profession, determining to succeed, if 
industry and application could command success. I had an 
ambition for surgery—general surgery—and I was perform- 
ing all sorts of beautiful and brilliant operations. This was 
before the days of anaesthetics, I had made, in five or six 
years—1840 to 1845—such a reputation for surgery that 
people came to me from all parts of the State.” LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
9 
His first article for publication was tire report of a case 
of hare-lip in the “Baltimore Dental Journal” in 1845, and 
in the same year, shortly after this, he wrote his celebrated 
essay on “ Trismus Nascentium.” 
In June, 1845, he was called to see a case of instru- 
mental labor which resulted in producing a large vesico- 
vaginal fistula. Before this time he had had nothing to do 
with diseases peculiar to women. He looked up the litera- 
ture, and found that vesico-vaginal fistula was considered 
incurable ; he had never before seen a case. “ Strange to 
say,” a month later another case was sent to him, and again, 
just one month later, a third vesico-vaginal case was sent from 
the country. He gave the patient a bed in his little hospital 
in his back yard, which he used for his negro surgical cases, 
and, of course, continued to read and think about the sub- 
ject. He had been doing many operations in cases which 
before in that country were considered incurable, and here 
were three cases that seemed everywhere to be regarded as 
incurable. His success in other cases encouraged him to 
keep his mind on the subject. Just at this time, while one 
of these three patients was in his hospital, he was called to see 
a woman who had been thrown from a pony. She fell on 
her pelvus and retroverted her uterus. He put her in the 
knee-chest position, and, in replacing the uterus, the vagina 
was distended by air entering it. Comprehending what had 
taken place, he at once saw how he might be able to operate 
in a case of vesico-vaginal fistula. He started directly for 
home to try his experiment, stopped on his way to get a 
large spoon, bent it so as to retract the perinaeum, and then 
went at once to his hospital and examined the case of vesico- 
vaginal fistula. He wrote at once for the other two patients 
with vesico-vaginal fistake, and commenced to devise in- 
struments with which to close the fistula. He succeeded 
in finding six or seven women with vesico-vaginal fistuke. 10 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
He enlarged his little hospital by adding a second story, 
and then began the famous experiments. 
Notwithstanding repeated failures during four years’ 
time, he kept his six patients and operated until he tired 
out his doctor assistants, and finally had to rely upon his pa- 
tients to assist him to operate. After four years he had per- 
fected most of his instruments, and could succeed in partially 
closing the fistulse, but never in completely closing them. 
When his mind was full of the subject he came across a 
piece of small brass wire, and this suggested silver wire, and 
at once he went to a jeweler’s and had some small wire 
made of pure silver. In May or June, 1849, he used the 
silver wire as sutures, and succeeded perfectly in closing the 
first vesico-vaginal fistula, and in two weeks more he cured 
two more cases. 
About six weeks after his first successful case he was 
taken sick with diarrhoea. His health utterly failed, and he 
went from place to place trying to get well. Finally, when he 
fully expected to die, he says : “ While lying in bed, I wrote 
out the history of my operations for vesico-vaginal fistula 
for the press, and sent the article to Dr. Isaac Hays, the edit- 
or of the ‘ American Journal of the Medical Sciences.’ It 
was published in January, 1852.” He had been North to New 
York and Philadelphia in 1849, ’SO, and ’52. He would 
get better, but never entirely well, and finally made up his 
mind to sell out and come to New York to live. In May, 
1853, he came North, In September, 1853, he bought the 
house, No. 79 Madison Avenue, and, although very much re- 
duced in strength and health, still suffering from diarrhoea, 
he went to work. He made the acquaintance of Dr. Mott, 
Dr. Francis, Dr. Buck, Dr. Watson, and others. One of the 
doctors had a case of lacerated perinseum, and asked Dr. 
Sims to show him how to repair it. This he did success- 
fully. Subsequently the same doctor asked the loan of Dr. LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
11 
Sims’s instruments to use in the New York Hospital, but did 
not invite Dr. Sims to assist or to see the operation. Dr. 
Valentine Mott gave Dr. Sims his first case of vesico-vaginal 
fistula in New York; this he cured, and soon the leading men 
were operating upon lacerated perinseums and fistulse, hut Dr. 
Sims was left out. Dr. Sims saw that he must have a hospital 
for his work. Dr. Francis was always true to Dr. Sims, and 
could he relied upon, hut the leading clique were against him, 
and he could do nothing through them or through any one that 
they could control. Dr. Stevens had been carried away hy 
Dr. Sims’s enthusiasm, and had promised to give him a chance 
to bring his plans before the profession ; but afterward he 
said: “ I have been talking with my friends in the medical 
profession, and I find here such a degree of universal oppo- 
sition to you and to your enterprise that, I am sorry to say, 
I can not now give you the privilege or opportunity of ad- 
dressing the profession under my auspices.” Such oppo- 
sition as this, together with threatened want, would have 
driven Dr. Sims from New York, but his wife would not 
consent to leaving, and her cool courage kept him here. 
By chance a friend brought Mr. Henri L. Stuart to see Dr. 
Sims, to advise him about establishing the Woman’s Hos- 
pital. After hearing the doctor’s story, Mr. Stuart said: 
“We will rent Stuyvesant Hall; we will advertise in the 
newspapers for the doctors to attend a meeting which is 
to be addressed by Dr. J. Marion Sims, late of Montgomery, 
Ala., on the necessity of a hospital in the city of New 
York for the treatment of the diseases of women. We will 
invite all the leading doctors in town by special cards, and 
they will come to hear you; and they will be wise enough 
to indorse what you have to say. If you tell your story to 
the crowd of doctors that I will get there as you have told 
it to me, we will carry the day,” Mr. Stuart at that time 
was influential with the daily press of New York. 12 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OE THE 
In May, 1854, the meeting was held, and it was by this 
means that Dr. Sims obtained the public indorsement of 
the medical profession which he could not get by direct 
appeals made to leading doctors. Dr. Sims selected for a 
committee Dr. Delafield, Dr. Mott, Dr. Stevens, Dr. Green, 
and Dr. French; and, subsequently, Mr. Peter Cooper and 
Mr. E. C. Benedict wTere put on the committee. Nothing 
else was done till fall; then Mr. Stuart said to Dr, Sims : 
“ Now you have done with the doctors all that you can hope 
to do. You have their public indorsement, and they can not 
take it back. You have nothing to hope for from the doc- 
tors; your only chance is by appeal to the heads and hearts 
of intelligent women.” The first woman that Dr. Sims suc- 
ceeded in getting interested in his work was Mrs. Elisha 
Peck, now Mrs. Abernethy; through her he got at several 
others, but made little headway until he saw Mrs. Doremus. 
After hearing his story, she said : “ Mrs. David Codwise 
must be first directress of this institution ; Mrs. William B. 
Astor, second directress; Mrs. Ogden Hoffman, third; Mrs. 
Webster must be the secretary; and Mrs. Jacob Le Roy, 
treasurer.* 
On the sth of February, 1855, Dr. Sims saw Mrs. Cod- 
wise and succeeded in interesting her. “On February 10, 
1855, a meeting of the ladies was called at the house of Mrs. 
Codwise, and the Board of Lady Managers was organized 
precisely as Mrs. Doremus had said that it should be, and they 
at once appointed a committee to rent a building and open 
a hospital as soon as possible. A few days after this, Mrs. 
Doremus and Mrs. Codwise were called upon by prominent 
doctors, who endeavored to convince them that they were 
making a mistake, that they had been deceived, that no such 
* Examination of the first reports shows that Mrs Fordyce Barker 
was the first secretary. LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
13 
hospital was needed,” etc. But they failed in their mission. 
Dr. Sims says : “The Woman’s Hospital, from the day that 
it was opened, had no friends among the leaders of the hos- 
pital men. I was called a quack and a humbug, and the 
hospital was pronounced a fraud. Still it went on with its 
work.” The Woman’s Hospital was inaugurated, at 83 Madi- 
son Avenue, on the first of May, 1855. Patients came in, and 
it soon proved a success. Dr. Sims says: “ The hospital 
had been opened about six months when I told the Board of 
Lady Managers that I must have an assistant. They assent- 
ed, and I selected Dr. F. 11. Johnston, Jr.; hut he had other 
plans. I then offered the place to Dr. George F. Shrady; 
he did not see fit to accept it.” Soon after this Dr. Thomas 
Addis Emmet was appointed. 
The first anniversary of the Woman’s Hospital was held 
at Astor Place, January, 1856. It had proved a great 
success, the lady managers saw the necessity of a larger 
hospital, and steps were taken to get a charter from the 
State. Dr. Sims says: “ The charter of the Woman’s 
Hospital of the State of New York was obtained in 1857. 
The Hon, James Beekman was my chief adviser and 
coadjutor, I spent a great deal of time at Albany that 
winter, neglecting my private business very much, and leav- 
ing Dr. Emmet in charge of the hospital. . . He also 
says; “The most difficult thing and work I have ever 
achieved in connection with the founding of this Woman’s 
Hospital was the procuring of the land on which the build- 
ing stands to-day. . . . This I accomplished after a great 
deal of hard work and political wire-pulling.” 
In 1856 he had fully recovered his strength and worked 
steadily at the hospital, and had a large private practice to 
attend to. In 1861 he went to Europe for the first time. 
He says: “It was in June that I went, because I needed a 
little holiday; I had worked too hard, and was tired out; MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
14 
but I went more particularly to investigate the hospital 
treatment in the Old World.” 
He first went to Dublin, and there operated upon a 
patient with vesico-vaginal fistula before Dr. Fleetwood 
Churchill and others. From there he went to Edinburgh to 
see Sir James Y. Simpson ; he was especially interested in 
seeing Simpson operate for dysmenorrhcea, but did not think 
it well done, and formed an unfavorable opinion of the man. 
Of Mr. Syme he writes : “ I saw him operate repeatedly. I 
have seen great surgeons operate all over the world, operat- 
ing in my own country, in London and Paris, but I have 
never seen such operating as his, or such an operator as 
Syme.” He went to London and operated before Spencer 
Wells and others; the patient died in six days, the first 
that he had over lost from this operation. The autopsy 
showed that the sutures had closed the ureters. He 
went to Paris in September, 1861. There no one had 
yet successfully closed a vesico-vaginal fistula. Dr. John- 
ston introduced him, and soon he was invited to operate 
by Hugier at the Beaujon, and Nelaton and others were 
present. Then he operated for Vernier at the St, Louis 
Hospital. Both cases were successful, and it created a sen- 
sation. He also operated successfully for Loguier at the 
Hotel Dieu. Soon after this he was invited by Velpeau to 
go to La Charite and operate on a young woman who 
had been the subject, so it was said, of seventeen previous 
operations by Jobert de Lamballes. This case succeeded, 
making four in succession. 
Soon after this he was called to Brussels to operate in 
the hospitals there. Dr. Sims says: “ I then returned to 
Paris, and was on the eve of going to Vienna, there to show 
the operation. I forgot to mention the fact that about 
three or four years before I went to Paris an American sur- 
geon had gone there claiming to have been the author of LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
15 
the operation for vesico-vaginal fistula, and he gave me 
some credit for having initiated the work, hut claimed my 
speculum and all the instruments as his own. He had set 
the blade of the speculum at a little more of an acute angle 
with the handle, and he had put an ivory handle to the 
tenaculum instead of ebony. He used what was called a 
button for fastening the silver wire. He had operated 
only once in Paris. The operation was only a partial suc- 
cess, for very soon after the sutures were removed there 
was an absorption of the line of union, and the fistula 
opened and the urine escaped; so his operation was pro- 
nounced a failure.” A case of vesico-vaginal fistula in a 
woman about forty years old, who had been subject to this 
infirmity for more than twenty years, was brought to Dr. 
Sims. “ She had been seen and examined by many of the 
leading surgeons of Paris, and pronounced incurable. She 
had also been seen by the American surgeon who preceded 
me to Paris three years previously, and who had refused to 
operate upon her.” Dr. Sims hired rooms for her and 
operated on her in the presence of Nelaton, Velpeau, Civi- 
ale, Bonn, Leroy, Sir Joseph OllifEe, Campbell, Hugier, 
and others. Dr. Johnston gave the anaesthetic. The opera- 
tion lasted one hour. In one week’s time the sutures were 
removed, being about twelve in number, and the patient 
was perfectly cured. 
Just as he was getting ready to go to Vienna, M. Nela- 
ton sent for him to see a case with him. The patient was 
brought to Paris; she needed preparatory treatment, and 
detained the doctor so long in Paris that he did not go to 
Vienna. This was the celebrated case where Nelaton re- 
suscitated the patient from the influence of chloroform by 
hanging her head down. 
He writes: “ Soon after M. Nelaton’s case was per- 
fectly cured I returned to America, . . . arriving in New 16 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
York on the 11th of January, 1862. When I left home, in 
July previously, there was marshaling of forces North and 
South for the great civil war. On my arrival in Europe 
we heard of the battle of Bull Run. On my return I was 
obliged to provide myself with a passport to come into my 
own country. When I got home I found that we were in 
the very midst of a great civil war, and I was made so un- 
happy by the state of affairs then existing that I made up 
my mind to take my family abroad, and we sailed from New 
York in the Great Eastern in July, 1862. My programme 
was to establish my family in Paris, where I thought I would 
remain six months in the year, in the summer time, and 
then return home and practice my profession to make money 
to support them abroad. I was so sure of coming back 
again to America in the autumn that I had paid for a 
return ticket on the Great Eastern; but, as soon as I 
got to Paris, I found that the work I had done there the 
summer before in the hospitals and for M. Nelaton had 
given me so much reputation that I had no trouble at all in 
getting business enough to support my family without the 
necessity of returning to New York for that purpose.” He 
was consulted by many of the nobility. “ Thus I was de- 
tained abroad quite unexpectedly, but, viewing the political 
condition of the country and the disturbed state of affairs, 
I easily resigned myself to the force of circumstances and 
remained abroad, thinking every year that I would return.” 
When he began writing his book it was in 1863, while he 
was at Baden-Baden, where he was attending Lady Hamilton. 
He fully intended to write a complete work, but changed 
his mind and commenced a pamphlet on “ Sterility.” He 
says: “ I went on with the subject, and, instead of its end- 
ing in a pamphlet form, it was a hook on all the diseases 
of women, leaving out the subjects of ovariotomy and the 
accidents of parturition, hut embracing everything else in LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
the department of gynaecology. This book was entitled 
1 Clinical Notes of Uterine Surgery.’ It was so radical and 
revolutionary in all the methods adopted, and so startling in 
the results claimed in the treatment of many affections, that 
the profession did not at first readily accept its teachings ; 
but in a few years it has revolutionized completely the sub- 
ject of gynaecology, and now it is received everywhere as 
authority. Before that day and time there was not a pro- 
fessorship of gynaecology worthy of the name connected 
with any of our medical schools, and now we have profess- 
orships of this department in every medical school in the 
country; and, indeed, throughoirt the civilized Avorld. I 
have always said this book was a mere accident, that I never 
intended to write it, and the book that I went to Baden to 
write has never yet been written.” He remained abroad 
until 1868, spending most of the time in Paris and London. 
He performed many operations, and his reputation was as 
great throughout Europe as it was in his own country. Dr. 
Sims was a true American, and a believer in the republic. 
In September, 1868, he returned to New York and took an 
office at 13 East Twenty-eighth Street, and soon had a large 
practice. On December 7, 1868, he read a paper “On the 
Microscope as an Aid in the Diagnosis and Treatment of 
Sterility,” which was afterward published in the “ New 
York Medical Journal.” 
He remained here for the winter, visited his family in 
the summer of 1869, and returned to New York in the fall. 
In 1870 he took part in organizing the “Anglo-Ameri- 
can Ambulance Corps for service in the Franco-Prussian 
AYar.” He was made its chief. 
During the winter 1871-72 the Medical Board of the 
AYoman’s Hospital of the State of New York was reorgan- 
ized. It would have been an easy matter for Dr. Sims to 
divide the service with Dr. Emmet, but he believed that it 18 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
was for the interest of the hospital to add other prominent 
men to the staff, and it was finally settled by appointing Dr. 
J. Marion Sims, Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, Dr. T. Gaillard 
Thomas, and Dr. E. R. Peaslee. 
The beds of the hospital were divided between these 
four, each having sixteen beds, and they went on duty May 
1, 1872. The writer first met Dr. Marion Sims in 1868. At 
that time he was fifty-five years old, but he was as erect, as 
active, and as young in heart and mind as a man of thirty- 
five or forty. My father and mother knew Dr. Sims as a 
boy, and he could tell me about my mother when she was 
an infant in arms. And I could tell him of the old campus 
grounds of South Carolina College, from which I had just 
graduated. His house was always open to me, but our real 
acquaintance began in May, 1872, when I came before the 
Medical Board of the New York State Woman’s Hospital as 
a candidate for the position of interne. Before this the place 
was had by appointment without competitive examination. I 
was senior assistant in 1872-73, when the trouble began which 
a year later ended by Dr. Sims resigning his position. The 
hospital was crowded with patients, and its increased fame 
drew many visiting doctors to the clinics, and many patients 
with desperate cases applied for treatment. Among the 
latter were a large number with cancer. At that time the 
use of antiseptics was not so well understood, and some of 
these patients, when tamponed after being curetted, occasion- 
ally caused offensive odors in the wards. The lady mana- 
gers believed this would injure the hospital, so they urged 
the Board of Governors to pass a by-law prohibiting the 
admission of cancer cases to the hospital. This some of the 
Medical Board thought was rather high-handed, and main- 
tained that the medical men of the hospital were the proper 
ones to decide what patients should be admitted. On account 
of the crowds of doctors coming to the clinics, the govern- LIFE OF J. MAEION SIMS, M. D. 
19 
ors passed another by-law allowing only fifteen medical visit- 
ors to attend each clinic, and the Medical Board protested 
against this regulation. At the axmual meeting these by- 
laws were under discussion, and Dr. Sims read a protest 
and said that unless these by-laws were rescinded he would 
resign his position as a member of the Medical Board, and 
he afterward sent in his resignation and it was accepted. 
About this time Dr. Sims was the subject of very harsh 
criticism, and much was said about his rash and reckless 
operating. His operation for division of the cervix uteri 
for the relief of dysmenorrhoea and sterility and the great 
danger in using his so-called sharp curettes were especially 
commented upon and condemned. During my hospital 
service of eighteen months I saw much of the doctor, and, 
after leaving the hospital, was frequently at his house, and 
often assisted him at operations, but he rarely said any- 
thing about his relations with the hospital, and, as was his 
habit, he rarely made any other than complimentary state- 
ments about members of the profession. If he did say any- 
thing, he was frank and intense, but, until the open rupture 
of friendly relations took place between him and his former 
associates in the Medical Board, he never uttered a word 
against them, nor would he allow others to do so in his pres- 
ence. Others did talk indiscreetly and unjustly, but not 
Dr. Sims. He was too much of a man. He was totally in- 
capable of an under-handed trick. No one who knew him 
could doubt his courage and his frankness. Neither fear 
nor selfish policy ever seemed to me to influence him. If 
he made mistakes, they were honestly made. He had the 
moral courage, that few men possess, to acknowledge a 
wrong even in the midst of an excited discussion. His con- 
victions were strong, his feelings intense, and he was very 
impulsive, but behind these was a noble-hearted and chival- 
rous nature. It was not he that first brought the matter 20 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
before the public. It came about in this way. Mr. Henri 
Stuart, already referred to as having rendered Dr. Sims 
invaluable aid and advice in starting the Woman’s Hospital, 
wrote a biographical sketch of Dr. Sims and sent it to two 
medical journals for publication : one the “ Virginia Medical 
Monthly,” the other the “New York Eclectic Medical Jour- 
nal.” That published in the “ Virginia Medical Monthly,” 
of January, 187 V, was revised by Dr. Sims, and all reference 
to the cause of his resignation from the Woman’s Hospital 
was, at his request, left out. But that published in the 
“Eclectic Journal” was printed without Dr. Sims’s knowl- 
edge or consent. It was this article which led to the un- 
fortunate controversy that followed. 
Dr, Sims was very decided about anything which he 
had once taken time to master, but he was as a little child 
about all matters out of his special work. He was con- 
scious of what he did not know, and for that reason all the 
more certain and convinced as to what he did know. What 
he did, he did well. He was always prompt to the minute. 
He hurried in going to or getting at his work, but he never 
hurried in the performance of it. He did not hesitate, but 
he was deliberate, exact, and threw his whole being into 
whatever he did. It was marvelous to see the quick, im- 
pulsive, playful man settle down to deliberate, exact, un- 
erring work with his instruments. Of all the letters that I 
have ever seen of his, only one admitted “ haste,” and not 
one showed evidence of it. They were always plainly and 
neatly written, and clearly stated. 
It was his consciousness of what he did not know, to- 
gether with a sincere desire to do well all that he did do, 
that prevented him from writing more than he did. 
In 1872 he wrote an article on “Septicaemia in Ovari- 
otomy,” published in the “New York Medical Journal,” 
December, 1872, and April, 1873. ! LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
21 
On February 6, 1874, be read a paper at Albany before 
tbe State Medical Society on “ Intra-uterine Fibroids,” which 
was published in the “ New York Medical Journal ” of April, 
1874; and in 1874 lie addressed a meeting at Steinway 
Hall on “The Discovery of Anaesthesia,” and later in 1874 
he wrote a paper giving Dr. C. W. Long the credit of being 
the first to give ether and do a surgical operation while the 
patient was under its influence. 
In 1875 he was elected president of the American Medi- 
cal Association, and delivered an address “ On the Preven- 
tion and Regulation of Syphilis in America,” and in his 
farewell address at Philadelphia he came out boldly on the 
code question. 
He always lent a willing ear to an enthusiast, and was 
ready to give any one the credit of meaning right. He 
knew what it was to be looked upon as an innovator. A 
plausible story enlisted his sympathy, and many an un- 
worthy person has received both money and encouragement 
from him. He was too much occupied with his special 
work to study human nature closely, and he was naturally 
inclined to credit every one with honest intentions. 
In 1877 he decided to go abroad. His reasons were 
twofold: First, his work here in New York was more dis- 
turbing and exacting than his work in Europe, and he got 
better fees and was not so much overrun with charity cases 
in Europe. He wanted to complete his book, and it was 
nearly impossible for him to work steadily while here. He 
had much more leisure abroad. Second, he wished to start 
his son alone, in order to make him self-reliant by throw- 
ing him entirely on his own resources. He settled Dr. H, 
Marion-Sims in San Francisco, and subsequently sailed with 
the rest of his family for Europe. 
Before leaving he turned over his business here in New 
York to me. He returned to New York in 1879, and for a 22 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
year’s time I was with him constantly. He had an immense 
practice, operating on something over a hundred cases in 
private practice in a year. 
While abroad he became a convert to complete Lister- 
ism, excepting the spray, and this he allowed me to use. 
One of the three deaths in his practice during that year 
was that caused by the use of bromide of ethyl, which he 
reported in a paper before the Academy of Medicine. 
He wrote a paper on the “ Treatment of Stenosis of the 
Cervix Uteri,” and it was published in the “Am. Gyn. 
Trans.,” vol. iii, 1878; and in the “American Journal of 
Obstetrics” for July, 1879, he published his views on “The 
Treatment of Epithelioma of the Cervix Uteri.” 
In 1880 his son, Dr. Harry Marion-Sims, returned from 
California and entered into practice with his father. 
Dr. Sims was elected president of the American Gynae- 
cological Society in 1880. In December, 1880, Dr. Sims, 
when tired out from constant work late in the afternoon, 
gave his seat in his brougham to two ladies, and mounted 
the box with the driver and rode thus some distance. This 
little act of gallantry was like Dr. Sims, but very unusual 
and, in such weather, very imprudent for a man of sixty-nine 
years. It undoubtedly was the exciting cause that lighted 
iip an attack of pneumonia which nearly cost him his life. 
Up to this time his physical elasticity and activity were 
extraordinary for one of his age. And his mind was so 
receptive and progressive—in other words, so fresh and ac- 
tive—that his last teachings seem to be only fully appreciated 
by the younger men of the profession. Many that took up 
his early teachings and made good use of them had passed 
the age of receptivity before Dr. Sims had finished furnish- 
ing new ideas and new instruments, which was up to within 
a few days of his death. 
During the first six w'eeks of his severe illness I was in LIFE OP J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
23 
constant attendance. For ten days lie was in a typhoid and 
serai-delirious state. For him it was a fearful struggle. He 
never could hear pain well, but he had no fear of death. 
He said repeatedly : “ If I had my book finished and a few 
notes of my life written out, I would be ready to die.” His 
mind was so active that it helped to exhaust him. It was 
wonderful to see how completely the special work of bis 
life, his ambition, absorbed his whole nature. In his de- 
lirium he was constantly contriving instruments and going 
through with operations. He was very willful and difficult 
to manage. He had often said to me : “ Wylie, I have an 
iron will,” and I saw that he was right. If ever a man did 
have completely the courage of his convictions it was J. 
Marion Sims. He did not have much faith in drugs, and 
often we could not make him take them. Even in his de- 
lirium he fought against them, and imagined that certain 
persons were trying to poison him. He willingly took nour- 
ishment. For weeks his left lung was completely solidified; 
but his heart stood the strain, and surprised both Dr. Met- 
calfe and Dr. Loomis; the latter visited him daily. About 
the Ist of February, 1881, his temperature, which had never 
remained any length of time near normal, began to rise 
steadily higher and higher every evening, and it was plain 
that in this climate he would not live much longer. We 
waited for a change for the better in the weather, but it did 
not come. With his temperature at 102° F., and the weather 
thermometer at 20°, we took him South. After leaving 
Washington, every mile that we traveled seemed to improve 
him, and when he reached Charleston, in his native State 
we felt sure that he would get well. His recovery was slow, 
and, although he never was the same man physically, yet in 
a year’s time he looked well, and was again at work. 
He returned North still quite feeble, and went abroad in 
June. 24 
MEMORIAL SKETCH OF THE 
While abroad he did some work in practice, hut spent 
the winter in the south of France. He did some writing, 
but was too feeble to work as usual. 
In September, 1882, he came home, much improved in 
health. His digestion was poor, and he complained of se- 
vere pain about his heart. While in San Francisco, in 1877, 
he had what may have been one or two mild attacks of an- 
gina, but they were not repeated. He was examined both 
abroad and at home by the best experts, but none could find 
positive indications of organic disease of the heart. We all 
thought the trouble was functional, or perhaps, in a measure, 
due to old adhesion about the pericardium, for it had been 
affected when he had pneumonia. 
He was positive that he had serious disease of the heart, 
and it often caused deep mental depression. 
Notwithstanding his poor health, he delivered his paper 
on “ Treatment of Gunshot Wounds of the Abdomen ” at 
the New York Academy of Medicine, and for three quarters 
of an hour held a crowded house spell-bound by his elo- 
quence and masterly treatment of the subject. 
As the weather grew cold in November he went abroad, 
and spent most of the winter in Rome, where he had a most 
successful practice among the nobility of Italy. He returned 
home July 13, 1883. He had regained his flesh and color, 
but still complained very much of his heart. During the 
summer he was busy writing his autobiography. In Sep- 
tember he came to town, and, with his son, Dr. H. Marion- 
Sims, was busy at work seeing patients and operating, but 
he could not do much work without great fatigue, and to 
us who knew him he was greatly changed. 
He intended to sail for Europe early in November, but 
was persuaded to remain over a week longer to do a very 
serious operation. On November 13th, at 9p. m., he went 
with his son, Dr. H. Marion-Sims, to see this patient. On LIFE OF J. MARION SIMS, M. D. 
25 
his return home he coughed considerably, and, after taking 
some morphine to check it, went to bed. He had a habit 
of writing down ideas at night, by means of a pamphlet, the 
edge being placed on paper so as to guide his pencil with- 
out a light. At 3 a. m. he was writing in this way, sat 
up to take some water, and fell back and expired without 
uttering a word. An autopsy showed that he died of athe- 
romatous degeneration of the coronary arteries. 
He was truly master of himself. Vices he had none, 
not even of the smallest kind. The animal in him was com- 
pletely under control. His habits and his appetites were 
always guided by his reason. I have known him, day after 
day and month after month, rise at seven, take a simple 
breakfast, consisting of a glass of milk and Southern hominy, 
bread and butter, and sometimes an egg. At eight enter 
his carriage, and make a few morning calls on severe cases. 
At nine return to his office and see patients till one or one 
thirty ; and take a simple lunch of steak, potatoes, etc. At 
two enter his carriage, visit patients, operate, etc,, returning 
home usually about five or six, write letters, and at seven 
take a plain dinner of one kind of meat and vegetables. He 
never took wine nor coffee nor tea, nor condiments of any 
kind. At the table he was usually talkative and playful, 
talking about the topics of the day, the theatre, of which he 
was very fond, etc. After dinner he usually wrote letters 
and did light work, reading journals, etc., or passed his 
time with his family or friends in the drawing-room. About 
nine thirty he would usually go to his bedroom, where he 
read or wrote, sometimes lying in bed, until midnight, when 
he would retire for the night. It was always marvelous to 
see him so continuously and persistently intent upon his 
work. When one was familiar with his capacity for endur- 
ance, his power of concentration, his unbounded enthusiasm, 
his deliberate, persistent, painstaking work, backed up by his 26 
MEMORIAL SKETCH. 
unselfishness and undaunted moral courage, it was not sur- 
prising to witness his success; His motto as a boy was: 
“ Duty before pleasure.” Later in life he needed no motto ; 
it had become a habit for him to do what he thought was 
right. Difficulties, obstacles, and trouble were as nothing 
to him when once he had made np his mind to act. He 
went directly at a thing, and he kept at it until it was mas- 
tered. It was this great painstaking and persistent work 
that made things so clear and so definite to him, and ena- 
bled him to express his ideas so lucidly. It was also this 
power that developed his self-reliance and his moral cour- 
age, and made his instruments and his methods of operating 
so near perfect that those who claim to improve or modify 
them are merely working backward over the same ground 
that Marion Sims traveled over in perfecting them. His 
was the inductive method, or working and perfecting meth- 
od—a developing method. He cleared away complications, 
and gradually simplified ideas and instruments till they 
approximated the truth and the best. 
He was no idle dreamer; he never wandered into intangi- 
ble mysticism; there was neither confusion about his work, 
nor indefiniteness about his aims. 
His mind was always aggressive, progressive, receptive, 
and ingenious. He was a leader—a 'practical genius.