Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1804

JAMES MARION SIMS (1813-1883) Silver sutures in surgery. S. S. and W. Wood 1858 79 pp., illus. 22.7 cm.

Called to see a country woman who had incurred a retroversion of the uterus in a fall from a horse, Sims observed that examination and correction were facilitated by a lateral positioning of the patient. The adoption of this position, the subsequent invention of a special curved speculum and use of silver sutures and a silver catheter, soon allowed Sims to operate successfully for vesicovaginal fistula, a frequent and distressing complication of childbirth seen particularly among the poor. Sims' procedure (Sims' operation) was so successful that it was soon adopted worldwide. This work was originally delivered before the New York Academy of Medicine. Sims recounts his early experience with the use of silver sutures (used to avoid sepsis) and takes full credit for their discovery and adoption.

Cited references: Cushing S255; Garrison-Morton 5605

Gift of Sara (Conn) and Harold Lincoln Thompson Foundation; James Emmett Conn Memorial Book Fund