Both patients of Sims’ fistula and trismus nascentium operations were not given available anesthetics, and the trismus nascentium infants whom Sims operated on perished as a result of his surgeries. In regards to Sims’ discoveries, Durrenda Ojenunga wrote in 1993:
“His fame and fortune were a result of unethical experimentation with powerless Black women. Dr Sims, ‘the father of gynaecology’ was the first doctor to perfect a successful technique for the cure of vesico-vaginal fistula, yet despite his accolades, in his quest for fame and recognition, he manipulated the social institution of slavery to perform human experimentations, which by any standard is unacceptable.”
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