Brink was a botanic physician who began advertising his services in Nauvoo, Illinois, in July 1842. In October 1842, Brink treated Nauvoo resident Margaret Kennedy Dana, who was pregnant, for fever and diarrhea. After pronouncing Dana’s unborn child dead in utero, Brink reportedly administered a fungus that caused uterine contractions and performed vaginal exams with excessive “force and violence” that resulted in severe lacerations, bleeding, and pain. Though the baby survived, Dana blamed Brink for causing her back pain and persistent incontinence. In early 1843, her husband, Charles Dana, sued Brink in the Nauvoo mayor’s court. On 10 March, JS ruled that Brink was liable for malpractice and awarded Dana ninety-nine dollars. (William Brink, “Medical Notice,” Wasp, 2 July 1842, [3]; Trial Report, 4–22 Mar. 1843.)

The Wasp. Nauvoo, IL. Apr. 1842–Apr. 1843.

Bernhisel received a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1827 and spent nearly fifteen years practicing medicine in Philadelphia and New York City before moving to Nauvoo in spring 1843. As JS’s trusted friend, Bernhisel participated in important temple ordinances in September 1843 and likely lived in JS’s home at the time JS delivered this discourse. (Bernhisel, “Inaugural Dissertation on Apoplexy,” title page; John M. Bernhisel, Medical Diploma, 1827; Certificate of Practice of the Managers, Physicians, and Surgeons of the Philadelphia Alms House, 1827, John M. Bernhisel, Papers, BYU; Longworth’s American Almanac, 121; Brigham Young and John M. Bernhisel to JS, Bond, 30 May 1843, JS Collection [Supplement], CHL; JS, Journal, 28 Sept. 1843; James, Autobiography, 17.)

Bernhisel, John M. "An Inaugural Dissertation on Apoplexy." MD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1827.

Bernhisel, John M. Papers, 1818–1872. CHL. MS 370.

Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City Directory, for the Fifty-Third Year of American Independence. . . . New York: Thomas Longworth, 1828.

James, Jane Manning. Autobiography, ca. 1902. CHL.

Though JS had no formal medical training, he apparently saw himself as a type of physician or healer. It is possible that JS learned some folk healing from his mother, Lucy Mack Smith, who was known to “administer and assist when her lowly neighbors were sick or dying” while the family lived in New York. During a conversation with a doctor and an attorney on 19 April 1843, JS stated that he “had been called to thousands of cases in sickness & he had never faild of administ[er]ing comfort.” He also indicated that he “never prescribed any [medicine] that would injure the patient if it did him no good.” (Eaton, Origin of Mormonism, [3]; William Kelley and Edmund Kelley, Interview with Orlando Saunders, 6 Mar. 1881, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2:85; JS, Journal, 19 Apr. 1843.)

Eaton, [Anna R. Webster]. The Origin of Mormonism. New York: Woman’s Executive Committee of Home Missions, 1881.

Vogel, Dan, ed. Early Mormon Documents. 5 vols. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996–2003.

Lobelia inflata is a flowering plant that Thomsonian physicians prescribed as an emetic. Though Samuel Thomson touted its medicinal properties, critics asserted that it was a deadly poison. In 1809, Thomson was arrested and tried for allegedly killing a patient with lobelia, but he was acquitted. (Thomson, New Guide to Health, 38–43 [second numbering]; Sally Wheelock and Ephraim K. Frost, “Fatal Effects of Lobelia and Cayenne Pepper Used in the Thompsonian Mode of Practice,” Repertory [St. Albans, VT], 8 Dec. 1831, [1]; “Thomson’s System, Trial, &c.,” Hillsborough [NC] Recorder, 25 July 1831, [3]; Thomson, New Guide to Health, 87–88, 95–104.)

Thomson, Samuel. New Guide to Health; or, Botanic Family Physician. Containing a Complete System of Practice . . . to Which Is Prefixed a Narrative of the Life and Medical Discoveries of the Author. Boston: By the author, 1822.

Repertory. St. Albans, VT. 1826–1836.

Hillsborough Recorder. Hillsborough, NC. 1820–1879.

In nineteenth-century America, practitioners of heroic medicine often prescribed the drug calomel, derived from mercurous chloride, to patients suffering from a variety of medical conditions. Practitioners of Thomsonian medicine and other botanical doctors opposed practices such as calomel purging. In his 1831 book New Guide to Health, Thomson asserted that calomel and “much of what is at this day called medicine, is deadly poison.” An 1825 song published in the Richmond Enquirer illustrated the aversion that some Americans felt toward calomel: “Howe’er their patients do complain / Of head, or heart, or nerve, or vein, / Of fever, thirst, or temper fell, / The Med’cine still, is Calomel. // Since Calomel’s become their boast, / How many patients have they lost. / How many thousands they make ill! / Or poison, with their Calomel.” Lucy Mack Smith believed that her son Alvin Smith died from calomel poisoning in 1823, and in April 1843, JS advised a group of Latter-day Saints that “calomel on an empty stomach will kill the patient.” (Cullen and Barton, Professor Cullen’s Treatise of the Materia Medica, 2:317, 389, 417; Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations, 110–117, 225; Thomson, New Guide to Health, 6 [second numbering]; “For the Enquirer,” Richmond [VA] Enquirer, 4 Mar. 1825, [3], italics in original; Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, bk. 4, [3]–[4]; Discourse, 13 Apr. 1843.)

Cullen, William, and Benjamin Smith Barton. Professor Cullen's Treatise of the Materia Medica. With Large Additions, Including Many New Articles, Wholly Omitted in the Original Work. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Edward Parker, 1812.

Rush, Benjamin. Medical Inquiries and Observations: Containing an Account of the Yellow Fever, as It Appears in Philadelphia in 1797, and Observations upon the Nature and Cure of the Gout, and Hydrophobia. Philadelphia: Budd and Bartram, 1798.

Thomson, Samuel. New Guide to Health; or, Botanic Family Physician. Containing a Complete System of Practice . . . to Which Is Prefixed a Narrative of the Life and Medical Discoveries of the Author. Boston: By the author, 1822.

Richmond Enquirer. Richmond, VA. 1815–1867.