James Marion Sims / [Hubert Ashley Royster].

  • Hubert Ashley Royster
Date:
[1922]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: James Marion Sims / [Hubert Ashley Royster]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Reprint from SURGERY, GYNECOLOGY AND OBSTETRICS August, 1922, pages 237-239 Roy moodie Collection. JAMES MARION SIMS IT IS difficult for the present generation to realize how great an influence Marion Sims exerted upon the surgery of the world. His fame was not sec¬ tional. Born in the South, he came to his fullness in New York and crowned his career in Europe by the highest recognition ever given an American surgeon. A short review of Sims’ interesting, all but romantic, life will justify his universal reputation and prove his greatness. His birthplace was Lancaster County, South Carolina, where he first saw the light on January 25, 1813. The record shows that after attending school and academy he received a degree from his State College in 1832, that he took a year’s course at the Charleston Medical School and that he was graduated in medicine at Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, in 1835. Thus equipped he returned to his native place for practice, but within a few months he became discontented and the autumn of the same year found him in Mt. Meigs, Alabama. Here he settled down to the life of an average country doctor. In his autobiography (The Story of My Life, 1884) he portrays feelingly the trials of the rural practi¬ tioner, and emphasizes, with some show of impatience, the discouragements and failures attendant upon such desultory work. Certainly Sims was not a success as a general family physician. He was restless, ambitious, fired with zeal for doing and finding things, and not satisfied with the humdrum of routine practice. While there are many able men who perform the most useful service in such affairs, Sims was not cut in that mold. He was yet to find his work. When, following a short engagement in an expedition against the Creek In¬ dians, he moved into Montgomery, Alabama, at the end of the year 1840, he struck his stride. His indomitable energy seized the opportunity to obtain a large sur¬ gical practice, and he was soon forced to build a private hospital in a corner of his lot for the accommodation of patients, whose care eventually made him famous. It was in 1849 that he announced his first cured cases of vesicovaginal fistula. The events leading up to this present many features of dramatic interest. From the time of Sims’ arrival in Montgomery he performed all sorts of operations in general surgery, such as those times permitted—amputations, harelip and cleft- palate repair, certain eye operations, tenotomies for club foot, and removals of the jaw. The most difficult cases were brought to him. Among the most interesting ones were the vesicovaginal fistulae, frequent at that time as the result of poor obstetrics, and considered practically incurable. Two apparently insignificant occurrences brought about the first successful result in the repair of these fistulae after many failures: One was the observation that in the knee-chest
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