Comments on: Random Reasons Why I Like Brigham Young: Three

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 18:15:23 +0000

Funny how it’s always the “in-laws.”

By: Hunter

Hunter — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:53:36 +0000

Excellent, Ardis! I hadn’t seen the older post “The Surgeon and Brigham Young” before. Thanks for the link. What a cool article, and great comments, too.

Some of my own in-laws have a tendency to mistrust “modern” medicine and are overly sympathetic to what I would deem quackery. I’m sure one day they will thank me for sharing “The Surgeon” post with them. [smirk]

[ending threadjack]

I can’t wait for the next installment of reasons why you like ol’ Brigham. This is a wonderful series.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:29:45 +0000

Another of the reasons I like Brigham Young is that he allowed himself to learn and adapt and change his opinions when he was presented with adequate information. His acceptance of modern medical techniques is one example of that. I've written about one incident that caused him to recognize that medicine had advanced far beyond the well-intentioned quckery of the past, in The Surgeon and Brigham Young. It would be a mistake to think that some of his anti-doctor rhetoric of the 1850s represented his views later in life -- as Jeff says, medicine had come a long, long way, and so had he.

By: Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:46:39 +0000

Seymour B. Young received his medical degree from the University Medical College of New York in the fall of 1874. He had studied in New York from 1871 to 1874. Before he left for New York he had studied with Salt Lake City doctors including Dr. W. F. Anderson and with both Drs. Benedict. All three were trained in medical schools in the East before their arrival in Utah. Things had changed from the time Brigham Young was talking about doctors in the 1850s by the 1870s.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:36:53 +0000

Ardis,

I found my other Brigham Young quote I referred to in my #31, but got in a hurry this morning and left it at home. Here is the basic quote, as I best recall, as the Saints were preparing to leave Nauvoo:

“I have told the Saints where to gather, and even if we are all dispersed, they know where to go. I want you to go now. When the Lord commands, he wants no arguments. I want no arguments, even if I am dead and in Hell.”

Part of the problem with the quote is that Dale Morgan, while writing an interesting book, provides no footnotes or direct references for his facts, just a general bibliography. It makes it hard to establish exactly where and to who the statement was made.

However, I can see Brigham Young being pretty direct in his public pronouncements, yet doing everything he could to help people get moved out.

Jeff, one might take issue with the statement about “well trained doctors” in 1877. Medicine was still way more of an art than a science at that point, and not a very good art. Brigham Young himself said on at least one occasion that observing the Word of Wisdom was better than any doctor he had ever seen, and he felt better off without them.

Iocaine powder? Inconceivable!

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:22:02 +0000

Thanks, Jeff. I enjoyed listening this afternoon to your response at the 1986 Sunstone Symposium.

By: Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:25:10 +0000

Ardis:

Thanks for this and thanks for explaining the problems with Sam Taylor’s assumptions. I had the task of doing that one year at MHA and was not received very well by Taylor’s followers. Also Brigham Young was attended in his last illness by well trained doctors including his nephew, Seymour B. Young. These doctors, including two non Mormons, would have know if he had been poisoned.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:03:21 +0000

john f, I opened that up to the class for ideas. We got the expected “pray about it” Sunday School answers, but I liked best what one class member said about thinking back over his life and identifying moments or actions that had brought him the greatest satisfaction, even if they were little moments that wouldn’t seem extraordinary in the eyes of anybody else. There was probably a pattern to those moments, and if he would think about them while reading over the scriptural list of spiritual gifts (even though that list isn’t exhaustive, it IS suggestive), he might recognize a gift he has been exercising all along.

By: john f.

john f. — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:43:44 +0000

Great post Ardis — what did you tell the widower in your class?

As with most of the previous commenters, I also appreciated this perspective of Brigham Young. Thanks for taking the time to flesh out your thoughts on this topic and for relating it to the letter your own father received.

By: Mark B.

Mark B. — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:16:38 +0000

Whatever “locaine powder” is, I am sure I wasn’t thinking of it–at least not consciously–since I don’t recall ever hearing of it.

What did Miss Sayers call it in her story, crazywomancreek? You obviously have a much better memory of the tale than I do.