Slave mothers of gynecology
Washington (EE.UU. ), 1807. The US Constitution banned transatlantic slave trade. This does not mean that slavery has been abolished, but that the main source of the slaves has been interrupted. Thus, slave women became the only way to “produce” new slaves.
So in 1845, in Alabama, when Dr. James Marion Sims treated a slave named Anarcha, at the request of his owner, he didn't do it for the well-being of women, but for taking care of essential means of production. She was 17 years old and after 72 hours of childbirth, developed the problem of vesicovaginal fistula, which, among other causes, causes incontinence and chronic pain. Dr. Sims tried to sew the fistula, but the result was not satisfactory.
When a white free woman, Mrs. Merrill, approached the consultation with the same problem, Sims completely changed position. So he decided to treat the slaves. Or, rather, he decided to experiment with slaves to treat white women.
Shortly afterwards, they took another teenage slave named Betsy with the same problem and, later, an 18-year-old named Lucy. He said the cases were “incurable” and did not treat them. Sims himself wrote that “I hated researching women’s pelvic organs.” But when a woman, free of white, like Mrs Merrill, came to her consultation with the same problem, she completely changed her attitude. So he decided to treat the slaves. Or, rather, he decided to experiment with the slaves so that he could then treat the white women, the historian Deirdre Cooper Owens, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology Origin of race, gender and American gynecology).
He invented a new position for the study of reproductive organs, a specific instrument for the operation, and in Alabama he prepared a hospital for twelve patients. He began experimenting with Anarcha, Betsy, Lucy and other slaves with the help of other doctors. But because the results were not satisfactory, the other doctors lost interest and left Sims alone. Then the doctor decided to train the slave patients to perform intersections – and they were kept in bed, as the interventions were performed without anesthesia. So in the end, after many attempts, with over 30 operations performed on Anoca, it was successful.
Because of this achievement, James Marion Sims has long been considered the father of gynecology. In 2018, the Black Youth Project 100 led to the removal of Simsen’s sculpture in New York. And soon after, in Montgomery, Alabama, near the hospital where Simse did his experiments, a sculpture of Anarcha, Betsy and Lucy was placed, in which Simsi was trying to take away her father's title from gynecology and those slaves were trying to name her mother from gynecology.
Urruña, 1750eko martxoaren 1a. Herriko hainbat emakumek kaleak hartu zituzten Frantziako Gobernuak ezarritako tabakoaren gaineko zergaren aurka protesta egiteko. Gobernuak matxinada itzaltzeko armada bidaltzea erabaki zuen, zehazki, Arloneko destakamentu bat. Militarrek... [+]
In the Maszycka cave in Poland, remains of 18,000 years ago were found at the end of the 19th century. But recently, human bones have been studied using new technologies and found clear signs of cannibalism.
This is not the first time that a study has reached this conclusion,... [+]
Porzheim, Germany, February 23, 1945. About eight o’clock in the evening, Allied planes began bombing the city with incendiary bombs. The attack caused a terrible massacre in a short time. But what happened in Pforzheim was overshadowed by the Allied bombing of Dresden a few... [+]
Poloniar ikerlari talde batek Sevillako Italica aztarnategiko Txorien Etxea aztertu du, eta eraikinaren zoruko mosaikoak erromatar garaiko hegazti-bilduma xeheena dela ondorioztatu du.
Txorien etxean 33 hegazti daude mosaikoetan xehetasun handiz irudikatuta. Beste... [+]
Judea, 2nd century AD. In the turbulent atmosphere of the Roman province, a trial was held against Gaddaliah and Saul, accused of fraud and tax evasion. The trial was reported on a 133-line paper in Greek (pictured). Thinking that it was a Nabataean document, the papyrus was... [+]
Vietnam, February 7, 1965. The U.S. Air Force first used napalma against the civilian population. It was not the first time that gelatinous gasoline was used. It began to be launched with bombs during World War II and, in Vietnam itself, it was used during the Indochina War in... [+]
Archaeologists have discovered more than 600 engraved stones at the Vasagård site in Denmark. According to the results of the data, dating back to 4,900 years ago, it is also known that a violent eruption of a volcano occurred in Alaska at that time. The effects of this... [+]
Japan, 8th century. In the middle of the Nara Era they began to use the term furoshiki, but until the Edo Era (XVII-XIX. the 20th century) did not spread. Furoshiki is the art of collecting objects in ovens, but its etymology makes its origin clear: furo means bath and shiki... [+]
In an Egyptian mummy of 3,300 years ago, traces of Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that caused the Justinian plague in the 6th century and the Black Plague in the 14th century, have just been found.
Experts until now believed that at that time the plague had spread only in... [+]
Greenland, the end of the 10th century. The first Scandinavian explorers and settlers arrived on the island. But by the 15th century these settlements had been abandoned and the original Inuit remained. But in 1721, the missionary Hans Egede organized an expedition and the... [+]
In 2017, Indonesia and the Netherlands signed an agreement to return the heritage stolen by the European country because of colonialism for three centuries. The Indonesian responsible for the return process, Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, explained that this agreement "was important in... [+]
Greece 1975. The country began the year as a republic, three weeks earlier, in the referendum on 8 December 1974, after the citizens decided on the end of the monarchy.
A decade earlier, in 1964, when King Paul I died, his son Constantine took the throne at the age of 23.
But... [+]
Copenhagen, 18 December 1974 At 12 noon a ferry arrived at the port, from where a group of about 100 Santa Claus landed. They brought a gigantic geese with them. The idea was to make a kind of “Trojan Goose” and, upon reaching the city, to pull the white beard costumes... [+]
Tennessee (United States), 1820. The slave Nathan Green is born, known as Nearest Uncle or Nearest Uncle. We do not know exactly when he was born and, in general, we have very little data about him until 1863, when he achieved emancipation. We know that in the late 1850s Dan... [+]
New York, 1960. At a UN meeting, Nigeria’s Foreign Minister and UN ambassador Jaja Wachucu slept. Nigeria had just achieved independence on 1 October. Therefore, Wachuku became the first UN representative in Nigeria and had just taken office.
In contradiction to the... [+]