Year: 1877




How Brigham Young Died.


Brigham Young, who should have been
killed by the hangman, escaped that func-
tionary, but fell into the hands OF four doc
tors and an indefinite number of brethren,
and was done to death with equal certainty
and with almost as much expedition as
would have been vouchsafed by some OF the
bungling professors OF the drop and slip
knot. Outside correspondents were not
accorded any facilities for obtaining direct
knowledge Of this famous impostor's malady
and the medical treatment he received, and
the advantage of this is that the record
given to the world has quasi official char
acter. II was first published in the Deserot
Ne,os, which is sort of Mormon court
gazette. The account is therefore not one
patched out by the guesses and half heard
and less understood phrases that so often
characterize reports by telegraph of the
medical treatment of distinguished persons.
1t is to be presumed that it was revised by
the doctors before it was printed. BY this
it appears that on Thursday, August 2S, the
prophet, having felt some slight uneasiness
in the day, was attacked at night with chol-
era morbus, the familiar symptoms of which
persisted with some severity until Saturday
morning. He endured thus at the outset
about thirty hours of purging and severe
pain. No treatment is recorded save the in
lection hypodermically of morphine, which
mitigated but did not stop the pain. For
man of seventy-six that thirty hours was
already good start in the wrong direction.
He slept on Saturday morning On Saturday
afternoon his disease is called Inflammation
of the bowels. Half a grain Of opium was
given then and another half grain at mid
night, and it is said that these small doses
affected his system because of constitu-
tional susceptibility to opiates. All day
Sunday he lay and groaned without help,
and Sunday night they gave him grain of
opium at one dose and half grain at an
other. On Monday the restlessness Of ex-
haustion began to appear, and at noon he
had so very severe spell" On Monday
night he had some sleep, and they began.
when he awakened, to give him milk punch.
An ounce of brandy and eight ounces of
milk were administered to him ''by the
various brethren very frequently" That
night he became comatose. And this is
hardly strange, as he had been in great
pain-purging and retching for four whole
days, supported only with six grains Of
opium and had taken no food, and had now
an ounce Of brandy given every frequently"
by all the brethren who dropped in. At
one A. NJ. on Tuesday they gave
'warm stimulating injections" and
at four A NJ. he was apparently
dead" This appearance he put on it
would seem for the sake Of Mormon mira
Gle, since the Church authorities called on
the Lord to restore him and he revived.
"For nine consecutive hours artificial respi-
ration was continued" at the end Of which
time he said he ''wished to rest" That
night ''partial prostration' ensued and the
four doctors. after consultation determined
on IAN entire filling up of the lower part of
the bowels by injection" for the purpose of
creating an action through the alimentary
canal" These men believed this mans in
testines were crippled by Inflammation of
three days duration and torn and distorted
by accumulated gases and they had gone
little way toward tying down the same
bowels with opiates; yet now because the
bowels did not act they proposed to pump
them full Of warm water, as if they were SO
many plumbers forcing out IN obstruction
and they practised this on man Of seventy
six years, SO feeble that they fed him brandy
and SO near to death that they had kept him
alive by artificial respiration 'for nine con-
secutive hours" He passed the night in
comatose condition, and died next day.
That he lived six days in such company is
wonderful evidence of vitality.