SUNY Upstate Medical University - Auricle Yearbook (Syracuse, NY)

Page 87 text:

6. 10. % •y I © ' © ' » ' ;•••: ON THE INDULGENCE AND RESTRAINT OF SEXUAL DESIRE The act of generation is a voluntary one. But nature has so placed it underthe empire of plea- sure that the voice of discretion is no longer heard, and the will is often led captive. Hence, it is well, for hygienic reasons, to consider the laws . , . The too frequent repetition of the reproductive act is known to be followed by consequences injurious to the general health. . . The abuse of bodily pleasures produces lassitude and weakness. Beauty of figure and grace of movement are sacrificed. When the excess is long continued, it occasions spasmodic and convulsive affections, enfeeblement of the senses, particularly that of sight, deprivation of the mental functions, loss of memory, pulmonary consumption, and death. A condition of intoxication in the husband is a proper ground for refusal. Fecundation taking place when either parent has been in this state has produced idiots and epileptics. This has happened again and again. The cases on re- cord are so numerous and well authenticated, as to admit of no doubt in regard to the fatal effect upon the mind of the offspring of con- ception under such circumstances . . . — George H. Napheys, M.D. From The Physical Life of Woman , published 1869

Page 86 text:

BSTETRICSAND 4 GYNECOLOGY iittimmninj 1. Dr. 2. Dr. 3. Dr. 4. Dr. 5. Dr. 6. Dr. Ms. Dr. Dr. 7. Dr. 8. Dr. 9. Dr. Dr. 10. Dr. 11. Dr. Dr. Robert Nesbitt, Raja W. Abdul Fathi A. Jishi John H. Hagen Renate N. Chevli Krishna B. Singh Frances V. DeGeorge Richard H. Aubry Samir Beydoun Shawky Badawy Muhammad IMaim Jack Rothman Hugh A. Clarke John Sorrentino David Brewer, Jr. Robert Segnit Jr., Chairman Karim TOWARDS MODERN GYNECOLOGY Like most physicians of his time, young Dr. James Marion Sims (1813-1883) had taken little interest in women patients beyond caring for ordinary ailments. But then in one month in 1845 he was asked to see three young slaves, all of whom had developed vesi- covaginal fistulas, a condition which at that time meant a lifetime of discomfort and seclusion. Just before seeing the third of these women, he was called to the scene of an accident in which a woman had injured her pelvis; by digital examination he discovered that her uterus was retroverted and that by admitting some air under pressure into the vagina her comfort could be restored. Sims had done this by placing the injured women in the knee-chest position, and he returned to his Mont- gomery, Ala. office and used a pewter spoon and plac- ed the young slave in the same position. As he in- serted the bent handle of the spoon into the patient ' s vagina, he reported, I saw everything as no man had ever seen before. The fistula was as plain as the nose on a man ' s face. He soon went on to develop an operation to correct these fistulas, and women by the dozens began to come out of seclusion to seek his help. The Sims position, a more comfortable adaptation of the knee-chest, and Sims speculum, bear his name today. In 1855, Women ' s Hospital, the first gynecologic hos- pital in the U.S., opened in M.Y., with 30 beds and Sims its only surgeon. Sims was later to become presi- dent of the A.M. A. and in 1878 he initiated an opera- tion for the removal of gallstones and named it chole- cystectomy.

Page 88 text:

1. Dr. Parviz Hanjani 2. Dr. John F. Gorman