Monday, August 01, 2016

Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey: The Mothers of Modern Gynecology

As you may know, the speculum was developed via experiments performed on enslaved Black women.

Dr. Marion Sims, who conducted many of these experiments, has been called the “father of modern gynecology” and is credited with inventing the speculum. 

Meanwhile, the enslaved Black women on whom he experimented have largely been forgotten. They were experimented on without anaesthesia and without dignity, and some of them died under his “care”. 


Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey were three such women whose names we should, we must, recall.

Just part of the history of how Black women's bodies have been treated in the name of “healthcare".   



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