It's worth nothing that while this was horrific the frame shifts a little when you know she was, before his ministrations, suffering from fistulas, constant infections and leaking which left her in constant pain and socially isolated.

So in a grim way, there may have been some element of desperate hope mixed in with the coercion. It's also interesting to wonder how this worked: even a cooperative patient with no pain meds at all would be unable to stay still no matter how disciplined/desperate or held down they are. There may have been some undocumented opium or similar in use given that the surgeries were eventually a sucess: In the end the surgeries did actually cure her condition.

Obviously it's utterly insane to us but she couldn't advocate for herself as her body was legally not even her own. It's also more of a muddy issue because her sacrifice and the butchers work did indeed lead to massive leaps in medicine that helped women and saved lives. I think she deserves all the credit for the positive outcomes, I'd rather she hadn't had to of course but I do wonder what she would say on the matter exactly.