Audio Books →Say Anarcha A Young Woman, a Devious Surgeon, and the Harrowing Birth of Modern Women's Health [Audiobook]

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 Sims's 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 Anarcha's life that did not come from Sims's suspect reports. Hallman reveals that after helping to spark a patient-centered model of care that continues to improve women's 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 women's health care.