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In the 19th century, a young surgeon named J. Marion Sims headed to Montgomery, Alabama, seeking a route to fame and power. He saw an opportunity in a highly morbid condition known as vesicovaginal fistula, whereby a false passage between the bladder and vagina forms as a consequence of difficult childbirth, and began experimenting with techniques to find a cure. The issue was that nobody in their right mind was willing to volunteer for this type of surgery, so he coerced Black enslaved women. The first of his patients to have been presumably “cured” was Anarcha. If this is the first time that you have heard her name, you are likely not alone. This conversation gives a voice to the Mothers of Gynecology, an appropriate moniker for the women who suffered at the hands of surgeons like J. Marion Sims and whose sacrifices led to the advent of the profession of gynecology. 

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Reference from the show:

• Say Anarcha, by J.C. Hallman
• The Anarcha Archiv
• A short history of anaesthesia: from unspeakable agony to unlocking consciousness
• More information on vesicovaginal fistula
• Arguments of Sims’ apologizes
• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, by Harriet A. Washington
• Nathan Bozeman wiki page
• Speak! Move! Change! Mbongi event
• J. Marion Sims was a b*tch t-shirts

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