James Marion Sims, was born on January 25, 1813 in Lancaster, SC; he died on November 13, 1883 in New York, NY. Sims was the son of John and Mahala Sims, and the husband of Eliza Theresa Jones (parents of five surviving children). An American physician and surgeon, Sims was the first to establish gynecology as a separate branch of medicine, and as one of the first areas of surgical specialization. He is now recognized as the leading gynecologist of his time. Sims graduated from South Carolina College in 1832; a year later (1833), he entered Charleston Medical College. In 1834, he enrolled in Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, obtaining the M.D. degree from that school in 1835. He began practice in Lancaster, South Carolina, where his first two patients died. He subsequently lived in Mount Meigs, Alabama; Montgomery, Alabama (1840); New York City (where he practiced surgery; 1853); Europe (1861); New York (1868); France (1870-1872); and New York...