By Jerald Tanner
While our readers may be aware of traumatic events in the life of Joseph Smith, many do not know about the horrifying operation he experienced when he was approximately seven years old. Joseph was born in Vermont in 1805. But in 1811 his family moved to New Hampshire, where six of the Smith children came down with typhoid fever.
A couple of weeks after first getting sick, Joseph’s leg had become so infected that there was talk of amputating it. The situation was very grave, and it was obvious that he could even lose his life.
Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, recounted her memories of the event:
Joseph, our third son, having recovered from the typhus fever, after something like two weeks’ sickness, one day screamed out while sitting in a chair, with a pain in his shoulder, and in a very short time, he appeared to be in such agony, that we feared the consequence would prove to be something very serious. We immediately sent for a doctor. When he arrived, and had examined the patient, he said that it was his opinion that this pain was occasioned by a sprain . . .
When two weeks of extreme suffering had elapsed, the attendant physician concluded to make closer examination; whereupon he found that a large fever sore had gathered between his breast and shoulder. He immediately lanced it, upon which it discharged fully a quart of matter.
As soon as the sore had discharged itself, the pain left it, and shot like lightning (using his own terms) down his side into the marrow of the bone of his leg, and soon became very severe. My poor boy, at this, was almost in despair, and he cried out “Oh, father! The pain is so severe, how can I bear it!”
His leg soon began to swell, and he continued to suffer the greatest agony for the space of two weeks longer. During this period, I carried him much of the time in my arms, in order to mitigate his suffering as much as possible; in consequence of which I was taken very ill myself.
Hyrum, who was rather remarkable for his tenderness and sympathy, now desired that he might take my place Hyrum sat beside him, almost day and night, for some considerable length of time, holding the affected part of his leg in his hands, and pressing it between them, so that his afflicted brother might be enabled to endure the pain, which was so excruciating, that he was scarcely able to bear it.
At the end of three weeks, we thought it advisable to send again for the surgeon. When he came, he made an incision of eight inches, on the front side of the leg, between the knee and ankle. This relieved the pain in a great measure, and the patient was quite comfortable until the wound began to heal, when the pain became as violent as ever.
The surgeon was called again, and he this time enlarged the wound, cutting the leg even to the bone. It commenced healing the second time, and as soon as it began to heal, it also began to swell again, which swelling continued to rise till we deemed it wisdom to call a council of surgeons; and when they met in consultation, they decided that amputation was the only remedy.
Soon after coming to this conclusion, they rode up to the door, and were invited into a room, apart from the one in which Joseph lay. They being seated, I addressed them thus: “Gentlemen, what can you do to save my boy’s leg?”
After consulting a short time with each other, they agreed to do as I have requested, then went to see my suffering son.
The principal surgeon, after a moment’s conversation, ordered cords to be brought to bind Joseph fast to a bedstead; but to this Joseph objected. The doctor, however, insisted that he must be confined, upon which Joseph said very decidedly, “No, doctor, I will not be bound, for I can bear the operation much better if I have my liberty.” “Then,” said Dr. Stone, “will you have some brandy?”
“No,” exclaimed Joseph, “I will not touch one particle of liquor, neither will I be tied down; but I will tell you what I will do—I will have my father sit on the bed and hold me in his arms, and then I will do whatever is necessary in order to have the bone taken out.” Looking at me, he said, “Mother I want you to leave the room, for I know you cannot bear to suffer so; father can stand it, but you have carried me so much, and watched over me so long, you are almost worn out.” Then looking up into my face, his eyes swimming in tears, he continued, “Now, mother, promise me that you will not stay, will you? The Lord will help me, and I shall get through with it.”
To this request I consented, and getting a number of folded sheets, and laying them under his leg, I retired, going several hundred yards from the house in order to be out of hearing.
The surgeons commenced operating by boring into the bone of his leg, first on one side of the bone where it was affected, then on the other side, after which they broke it off with a pair of forceps or pincers. They thus took away large pieces of the bone. When they broke off the first piece, Joseph screamed out so loudly, that I could not forbear running to him. On my entering the room, he cried out, “Oh, mother, go back, go back; I do not want you to come in—I will try to tough it out, if you will go away.”
When the third piece was taken away, I burst into the room again—and oh, my God! what a spectacle for a mother’s eye! The wound torn open, the blood still gushing from it, and the bed literally covered with blood. Joseph was as pail as a corpse, and large drops of sweat were rolling down his face, whilst upon every feature was depicted the utmost agony!
I was immediately forced from the room, and detained until the operation was completed; but when the act was accomplished, Joseph put upon a clean bed, the room cleared of every appearance of blood, and the instruments which were used in the operation removed, I was permitted again to enter. Joseph immediately commenced getting better, and from this onward, continued to mend until he became strong and healthy. When he had so far recovered as to be able to travel, he went with his uncle, Jesse Smith, to Salem, for the benefit of his health, hoping the sea-breezes would be of service to him, and in this he was not disappointed. (Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and his Progenitors for Many Generations, by Lucy Smith, mother of the Prophet, 1853, pages 62- 65; Reprinted under the title Joseph Smith’s History by His Mother.)
One is left to wonder how this traumatic surgery and the trip to his uncle’s home in Salem affected young Smith?
Although Joseph Smith dictated his recollection of the operation for his History of the Church, he never included it in the published version. While we noticed this story in a microfilm of the manuscript for the History in the 1960s, his account was not available to the public until 1970. Mormon scholar Reed Durham finally published Smith’s account in Brigham Young University Studies:
“When I was five years old or thereabouts I was attacked with the Typhus Fever, and at one time, during my sickness, my father dispaired of my life. The doctors broke the fever, after which it settled under my shoulder, and Dr. Parker called it a sprained shoulder and anointed it with bone ointment, and freely applied the hot shovel, when it proved to be a swelling under the arm which was opened, and discharged freely, after which the disease removed and descended into my left leg and ancle and terminated in a fever sore of the worst kind, and I endured the most acute suffering for a long time under the care of Drs. Smith, Stone and Perkins, of Hanover. At one time eleven Doctors came from Dartmouth Medical College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, for the purpose of amputation, but, young as I was, I utterly refused to give my assent to the operation, but consented to their trying an experiment by removing a large portion of the bone from my left leg, which they did, and fourteen additional pieces of bone afterwards worked out before my leg healed, during which time I was reduced so very low that my mother could carry me with ease.” (Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1970, page 481)
In our May 1996 newsletter we suggested the possibility that Joseph Smith’s horrific operation could have caused severe mental problems.
Interestingly, in a book published in 1998 by the American Psychiatric Press, we find that William D. Morain, M.D. explored this very theory. He is the author of more than 100 scientific and literary publications.
In the foreword to Morain’s book John C. Nemiah, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School, wrote the following regarding Morain’s work:
He has, in the first place, exhumed from contemporary documents an objective account of the details of an overwhelmingly painful surgical procedure endured by Joseph Smith at the age of seven, a traumatic event whose subsequent reverberations Dr. Morain traces in the repetitive patterns of behavior and fantasies of Smith’s adult life. Furthermore, Dr. Morain goes beyond the pathogenic effect of the traumatic episode to demonstrate how the horrifying real events of the surgery combined with the development phase-specific fantasies of a seven-year-old boy to bring about a permanent pathological distortion of Joseph Smith’s entire early psychological growth and development, with significant consequences for his subsequent adult psychological functioning.
In his book, The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith, Jr. and the Dissociated Mind, Dr. Morain made this comment about his work with children who had been traumatized:
The worst of all for me has always been the suffering of burned children. It is impossible not to inflict repeated pain during the necessary dressing changes on their tender raw surfaces. Their emotional reactions are always heartbreaking to me, even after all my years in intensive care units. Despite the explanations and the diversions, the pain administered by an adult is always perceived as punishment. I know that by the time they leave the hospital, their emotional lives will be as indelibly scarred as their hands and faces. I am aware that their future behavior may be driven in new and unpredictable directions by the painful stresses of their treatment. Their lives may have been extended by the treatment, but in exchange of an emotional mortgage with lifetime payments because of what I had done. (The Sword of Laban, page xix)
If children being treated for burns are left with emotional scars, one wonders how the trauma of leg surgery without benefit of anesthesia affected Joseph Smith?
Although Joseph Smith stated that he “was five years old or thereabouts” at the time of his operation, scholars now believe this happened when he was seven. LeRoy S. Wirthlin M.D., observed that the Smith’s would not have been living in Lebanon, New Hampshire, when Joseph was five. (Brigham Young University Studies, Spring 1981, pages 146-147)
Dr. Wirthlin gave some interesting information about surgery in Joseph Smith’s time:
In 1813, in America, surgery was not a medical specialty. There were no surgeons as we know them today. Physicians operated out of necessity, but none claimed surgery as a specialty. Moreover, only a few who practiced medicine had ever attended medical school.
These were primitive days there was not a single institution in New England in 1813 that might be called a hospital.
In addition to the problems of infection, the absence of anesthetics limited the number of operations. Before anesthesia was demonstrated in 1846, surgery was an ordeal for the patient and surgeon as well In 1813, surgery was carried out under the most humble circumstances . . .
Joseph’s surgery has been described as “brutal” and “gruesome,” but when seen through the eyes of the surgeon, there was a great sophistication in the operation performed . . . With the proper operation, the bone drained, and the dead fragments removed, Joseph Smith’s long ordeal with osteomyelitis rapidly approached an end. He regained strength and recovered. There was additional drainage of bone, for Joseph recalls fourteen pieces of bone worked their way to the surface before the wound closed. As nothing was mentioned about the healing of the wound, we assume it was straightforward. Joseph used crutches for three years following the surgery and was known to walk with a slight limp in later life. (Brigham Young University Studies, Spring 1981, pages 131-132, 152, 153)
While Dr. Wirthlin provided some excellent research concerning Joseph Smith’s operation, Dr. Morain concentrated on the psychological impact the operation had on Joseph Smith’s mind. Morain stated:
A cluster of three obscenely painful operations on the lower extremity of a 7-year old boy without anesthesia could hardly have been experienced other than as a horrible emotional trauma with a worst case of psychological overtones I soon began to ask myself what adult behavior patterns might be expected in such an individual whose brutal childhood trauma held themes of dismemberment, punishment, and worse. Would there be allusions to this incident in his writings? In his religious rituals? What about polygamy?
The story that soon began to emerge from authoritative sources concerning the grandiose behavior of Joseph Smith, Jr. was more than a little disturbing. But, I asked myself, did it automatically follow that if this quixotic man were not divine, was he therefore a willful fraud, a vicious imposter, or a promiscuous lothario? Was there another way to interpret Joseph Smith’s behavior that was both internally consistent and compatible with what is known from studies of human behavior? But it was not until the “final” draft was completed some two or three years later that I was introduced to a far more important source than the Freudians, one that demanded that I rethink and rewrite major portions of the book. I refer to the sensitive writings of Dr. Lenore Terr, the child psychiatrist of San Francisco whose original contributions on the long-term effects of childhood trauma have brought the entire field to a new focus of understanding. Terr’s work and that of Dr. Leonard Shengold and others demonstrated to me how the behavior of Joseph Smith, Jr. shared so many common features with that of others who have experienced similar humiliating and painful experiences as small children. Again, as Terr writes, “A whole life can be shaped by an old trauma, remembered or not.”
And in the closing of one last circle, I unexpectedly encountered Dr. John Nemiah, my Harvard psychiatry professor of a quarter century past he kindly helped to round out my understanding of the role of dissociation in psychopathology and how this seems to have played a role in Joseph Smith’s behavior. (The Sword of Laban, pages xx-xxii)
Dr. Morain made the following observation concerning Joseph Smith:
It is my theses that Joseph Smith’s childhood operations and the events surrounding his brother’s death had a dramatic impact on Joseph’s adult behavior, playing a major role in making him different from other men. In making this case, it will be necessary to explore what is known of the impact emotional traumas and surgical operations have on the fantasies of children and the sorts of lasting symptoms these fantasies can produce. Joseph Smith’s actual operations will be viewed from this author’s vantage point as a practicing surgeon Joseph Smith’s sexuality will be reexamined in light of his early trauma, as will those rituals and metaphors that punctuated his life. The focus throughout will be on understanding his behavior in the light of contemporary understanding of children’s and adolescents’ reactions to events of horror.
The case I present is not predicated on the discovery (with one minor exception) of new documents or other archival information. It does not require rewriting the historical record, but merely looking at it from fresh perspective This perspective, I will state at the outset, has nothing to do with miracles, faith, or angels. But the question cannot be avoided concerning the extent to which some of the adult symptoms arising out of his personal horrors may now be recognized as permanent effigies in the scripture and ritual of the church he founded.
During the course of my studies, I have developed great respect for the religious creativity of Joseph Smith, Jr. His prolific contributions have been expressed in some of the most vivid imagery in the language. He was deeply preoccupied with matters of guilt, bereavement, punishment, shame, redemption, and his relationship with superiors. (The Sword of Laban, page xxiv)
William Morain was impressed with Joseph Smith’s ability to draw followers to his religious beliefs:
Joseph Smith, Jr. was no ordinary frontier preacher. He had so inspired his thousands of followers that they would deed all of their possessions to his care, travel across the ocean to tell his story, and suffer unspeakable hardship to stay by his side. He had a direct and simple style that was not lost in the most soaring metaphor of his oratory And he carried an unparalleled measure of self-assuredness that would stand as a limitless fountain of strength to his followers and most maddening source of resentment to his enemies.
But it was neither his manner nor the allegiance of his followers that inspired vicious assaults on his being. He had claimed to have written a second Bible. He had announced himself to be a prophet—God’s voice on earth. He had installed himself as lieutenant-general and commander of his own army. He would run for president of the United States against Martin Van Buren. He would proclaim himself King of the Kingdom of God. And he had brazenly violated the most basic sexual taboos of the society in which he lived. His grandiose behavior appeared to his detractors to threaten the very social fabric of American life. There seemed to be no explanation for his behavior other than that of an imposturous charlatan or a vainglorius madman—unless he was really who he and his followers said he was.
It is entirely possible that Joseph Smith, Jr. was a charlatan. It is possible that he was who he said he was. It is possible he was both. But there may be one more possibility: that he was a dynamic, creative, and charismatic leader who was driven by powerful inner forces that neither he nor those around him could understand or control. (The Sword of Laban, pages 1-2)
On page 12 of his book Dr. Morain wrote:
The pivotal event in Joseph’s life that seems, at least in substantial part, to have profoundly altered his personality occurred shortly after his seventh birthday. At that time he underwent a cluster of surgical operations without anesthesia and was sent away from home to recuperate. The procedures themselves were expertly performed and clinically successful. But the brutal consequences for Joseph’s emerging personality appear to have resulted not only from the operations themselves but also from the lamentable fact that the circumstances of those operations were similar to the age-appropriate oedipal fantasies already lurking in the child’s mind. When reality met fantasy in Joseph’s bedroom, its result would be cataclysmic for his personality.
This tragic clash—occurring at age seven with Joseph’s cluster of operations and subsequent separation from his family—would be the progenitor not only of a body of literary output but also of a unique cosmology. Why a surgical event should have had such a soul-wrenching impact—a catastrophic emotional trauma—is the subject of a sizeable body of psychoanalytic literature that must be incorporated into the story. (The Sword of Laban, page 12)
The psychological impact of this surgery is also explored in the book Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith: Psychobiography and the Book of Mormon, by Dr. Robert Anderson. Dr. Morain wrote the following in a book review of Dr. Anderson’s book:
Rather than attempting a birth-to-death chronology, Anderson has chosen to limit his inquiry to a review of Smith’s formative years and The Book of Mormon itself. It is Anderson’s thesis that the Book of Mormon is a literal autobiography, rapidly dictated in the “spontaneous free association” Anderson’s unique contribution has been to demonstrate how the plot-line reflects the chronology of Smith’s own life story four times over. In particular, Anderson identifies the various named characters in the Book of Mormon as alter egos of Smith, specific family members, doctors, ministers, judges, and miscellaneous adversaries. . . .
Anderson sees Smith’s personality structure arising out of his dysfunctional family unit. His mother appears to have suffered episodic depression, and his weak, alcoholic father’s obsession with magic kept him from productive support of his family. The added deprivation of rootless poverty in the important early childhood years made young Smith woefully vulnerable to the psychological devastation of his horrible surgical experience at age seven. . . .
My own reading of Anderson’s book encountered only a few minor points of disagreement . . . I have no quarrel with his principal diagnosis . . . One cannot study the life of Joseph Smith without observing the primacy of narcissism in all its grandiosity. (The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, Book Reviews, vol. 20, 2000, pages 155-156)
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