Say Anarcha

For more than a century, Dr. J. Marion Sims was hailed as the father of modern gynecology. He founded a hospital in New York City and had a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the worlds first celebrity surgeons. Statues were built in his honor, but he wasnt the hero he had made himself appear to be. Simss greatest medical accolade was his so-called cure for obstetric fistula, which did forever alter the path of womens health. But the road to that treatment was several years of experimental surgeries - without anesthesia - on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha. One medical text after another hailed Anarcha as the embodiment of the pivotal role that Sims played in the history of surgery. Decades later, a groundswell of women objecting to Simss legacy celebrated Anarcha as the mother of gynecology. Little was known about the woman herself. The written record would have us believe Anarcha disappeared; she did not. Through tenacious research, J. C. Hallman has unearthed the first evidence of Anarchas life that did not come from Simss suspect reports. Hallman reveals that after helping to spark a patient-centered model of care that continues to improve womens lives today, Anarcha lived on as a midwife, nurse, and doctor woman. Say Anarcha excavates history, deconstructing the biographical smoke screen of a surgeon who has falsely been enshrined as a medical pioneer and bringing forth a heroic Black woman to her rightful place at the center of the creation story of modern womens health care.