James Marion Sims: Monster or Miracle Worker?

Black or Negro doctors were not common in America during the first half of the century: 500, or about 2.6%, of New York City’s 19,000 physicians were Negro in 1963 (Curtis 64). New York City and Chicago are major cities in the United States, they also are similar when it came to population. It is to say that since New York City only had a few Black Physicians during the time then Chicago reflected the same range of numbers when it came to their black physicians. In fact, African-Americans had only made up “3% of all professional workers in [New York City] in 1950”(Curtis 64). African American women were allowed to work in the medical professions but they were mostly limited to the nursing

The treatment of African Americans in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks demonstrates the lack of ethics in the United States health care system during the 1950s and 1960s. Under the impression that medical doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital were solely injecting radium treatment for cervical cancer, Henrietta Lacks laid on the surgical bed. During this procedure Dr. Lawrence Wharton Jr. shaved two pieces of tissue from her vagina, one from a healthy cervical tissue and one from the cancerous tumor, without Henrietta’s prior knowledge. After recovering from her surgery Henrietta exited the door marked, “Blacks Only,” the door that signified the separation between White and African-American patients. Had Henrietta been White, would the

Black midwives were common, and carried the responsibility of delivering infants from both slave mothers and white mothers. Due to the lack of sterilization and knowledge of pathogens, the infant mortality rate was high, and physicians blamed black midwives for purposefully killing children, even though the practices of physicians were not any healthier (Kiple 2). Having the responsibility of a midwife in the Antebellum South was not an easy process since many children would die, but the process was even more difficult for the mother delivering the child. Typically, the birth of a child is seen as a wonderful occasion, however, in the South, pregnancy and childbirth caused fear, not only for the mother, but for her family as well. Many complications such as puerperal(a deadly infection in the uterus), the inability to breastfeed the child, and prolapse of the uterus were symptoms a mother could experience after childbirth, which would ultimately end with her death, or her child’s death (Sullivan 24). The medical practices in the South were inadequate and inefficient to support prenatal and birthing needs, therefore, it caused a sufficient amount of deaths between mothers and children during this period of

In 1951 there was a young black lady who was named Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta Lacks was a tobacco farmer in Clover, Virginia. Her mother died giving birth and her father moved the family to Clover, where the children were distributed among some of the close relatives. In January of 1951 she went to John Hopkins hospital, which was the only place close to her that treated black patients at the time. Lacks described a “knot” in her stomach that ended up being cervical cancer. During her treatments two samples from her

When Henrietta was this far away from home and in a new environment, it frightened her into staying quiet and therefore, not understanding what her treatment was. Although the doctors weren’t treating her differently than other patients because of her race, she almost needed to be advised differently because she didn’t understand what was happening to her body. Skloot states, “For Henrietta, walking into Hopkins was like entering a foreign country where she didn’t speak the language…she’d never heard the words cervix or biopsy.” (pg 16) By feeling uncomfortable and unwelcomed in the hospital environment, it created a toxic cycle of African Americans stating that they are fine when something is seriously wrong with their health and are in need professional care. This fear seems to be rooted in the oppression that white doctors set on black patients because these doctors are seen to be of a higher class at the time. Proving truth behind Henrietta's fear was the unethical mindset of Richard Wesley TeLinde, who used poor patients’ tissue without telling them, believing that this was their payment of their free service. Researchers and doctors with similar mindsets to TeLinde’s is what created the power institutional racism which lead African American, like Henrietta, to have no

Like previously stated, there has been a vast history of racial issues particularly in the medical field. These issues have led to minorities, especially African Americans, to not trust medical professionals and procedures. A study found in the Archives of Internal Medicine gives shocking results by stating that “African Americans were far less trusting than whites of the medical establishment and medical researchers in particular. African Americans were 79.2 percent more likely to believe that someone like them would be used as a guinea pig without his or her consent” (Clark 118). There are many cases in the past which would make a minority feel neglected and like a “guinea pig”. For instance, Henrietta Lacks, the main character of Rebecca Skloot’s book, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951. Her doctors were shocked at the terrifying rate her tumor was growing (Skloot 117). Her cells were taken from her cervix and they were distributed world wide without her or her family’s consent. The distribution went on for years even after her death

Medical science has come a long way in the last 65 years. There have been many significant medical advances, including the development of the polio vaccine, the perfection of cell culturing techniques, the advent of medical commercialization, and progress towards understanding cancer and HIV. All of this -- and much, much more -- was made possible by one woman: Henrietta Lacks. She was an African American woman born in 1920, and by the time she died of cancer in 1951, she had made no direct contributions to the world of medicine. In fact, the thing that has since brought Henrietta’s name into the medical world was the very thing that ended up killing her. All of this was made possible by what doctors discovered inside of her tumor.

After seeking treatment 20 miles away at Johns Hopkins Hospital, her biopsy came back showing that she was in stage I of cervical cancer. Henrietta decided to keep this saddening news from her family. David or “Day” who was Henrietta’s husband and also cousin, drove her back to Johns Hopkins for treatment. Her treatment involved inserting radium into her cervix, then closing her up. What her doctor, Howard Jones, didn’t mention however, was that he took a sample of tissue from her tumor without mentioning it to Henrietta before or after he operated. Back in this era, doctors ran experiments on black women to compensate for them not having a pay a medical bill. The tissue sample was sent to George Gey, the man in charge of all culture and tissue samples who was eagerly looking for a way to separate cells and get them to grow to be able to make infinite amounts of cells that can be used for future experiments. Gey found that Henrietta’s cells were growing at a miraculous rate, like nothing he had ever seen before. This finding was exactly what Gey had been looking for that led him to a discovery that medical technology had never seen

The maltreatment of Henrietta Lacks, like other African Americans, is primarily due to the historical derogation of the racial group since they are perceived as subordinates within America, including the medical world. African Americans are branded as inferior in the fields of gynecology, biology, and genetics due to America’s historical degradation of African Americans seeping into the medical world. The gynecological practices presented within the text showcase the lack of basic ethical considerations of women, especially African American women since they received maltreatment due to both their race and gender. For example, the doctors who stole Henrietta’s cells felt that giving consent was not even worth it because the “colored women” do not pay for their treatment so stealing cells was their form of payment, but the hospital still had Lacks fill

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman during the segregation era in the 1950s, whose life was changed by a quarter size “knot” in her cervix. Assuming something was wrong with her body, Henrietta took a trip to visit a local Gynecologist, Dr. George Gey, in hopes of finding out what this “knot” could be. After having her infected and healthy cells taken and tested for what Gey believed was

The second African American woman to receive a medical degree in the United States was Rebecca J Cole. She was born in Philadelphia,Pa on March 16, 1846. She was raised along with four siblings by parents of a European and African ancestry. Rebecca J. Cole worked hard at her career so that poor women could have the opportunity to be educated.

Today I will be stating information about the first black African American doctor. His name is James McCune Smith. There are many reasons this black African American man was famous to his kind. One of the reasons is He was an American physician, apothecary, abolitionist, and author. Another reason is he is the first African American to hold a medical degree and graduated at the top of his class at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Last but not least he was the first African American to run a pharmacy in the United States.

In August 1951, Lacks discovered a “knot” on her womb. Many of her relatives suggested the cause of the knot was from pregnancy. Even though they assumed correctly, after giving birth, she suffered from a serve hemorrhage. After a visit to her primary care doctor, she visited the only hospital in the area that treated black patients, Johns Hopkins. Her doctor took a biopsy of the mass for laboratory testing. Soon after, Lack’s doctor diagnosed her with cervical cancer. During her radiation treatments, the doctor removed two cervical samples from Lacks without her knowledge.

Women find “that natural female genitals are unclean and ugly and the surgeries create a more pleasing, smooth, and ‘feminine’ genital area” (page 95 Genital Surgeries)

Evidence shows that apparently Sims had purchased a few enslaved African women of his own in which he performed his experiments/operations on. Although this does seem prejudice in Sims part, it has been confirmed that some of these enslaved women were some of the very first patients that participated at their own will. They agreed to Sims experiments with the sanguineness that the their condition would be palliated. They were aware of how many surgeons before Sims had failed in the success of ever finding a cure for their condition; they still took their contingencies. One of the enslaved women, Anarcha, acquires the amalgamation of the vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistulas. She withstanded thirty of Sims operations until he successfully