Pre-emancipation doctors conducted medical experiments on enslaved Black people without any thought of obtaining their subjects' consent.
In his autobiography, James Sims, considered the father of modern gynecology, describes the agony women suffered as he cut their genitals repeatedly without anesthesia, attempting to "perfect" his surgical techniques. He boasted about the advantages of working on people that were his property saying, "There was never a time that I could not, at any day, have had a subject for operation.” Sims considered this the most "memorable time" of his life.
Several other cases are well documented. John Brown, a slave, was flayed, blistered and tortured by Dr. Thomas Hamilton in an attempt to prove racial physiological differences.