Brigham Young - Catheter - Lubrication

In January 1876, showing compassion for another old man experiencing similar urological trouble, he[Young] sent a catheter to William Stevens. The detailed instructions for its use included a suggestion to lubricate it with “consecrated oil,” reflecting Young’s tendency to imbue even such an unpleasant task with a reminder of the sacred. 5

Turner, John G. (2012-09-25). Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (p. 374). Harvard University Press. Page 374

More Detail of usage:
The instructions: beginning with “Draw it through the hand slightly to warm it, then oil it with consecrated oil.” Steps for insertion are included, both from a standing and a prone position. Brigham tells the man “if there is any body who can help you, it may be well to have their aid,” but he himself had been using the thing so long that “I never want any help to use mine.” He warns the man against missteps he might make, and urges him to “be patient” and “use it gently.” He concludes with a promise that “you need have no fears in using this instrument” and if he will do so, he will live. “I pray that this may have the desired effect and you may be satisfied with it.”

Presumably it did have the desired effect, because the old man lived for another full year.

Backgroud:
By 1874, Young began experiencing other intractable health problems. In the fall of that year, he began retaining urine due to an enlarged prostate. For a fortnight , his nephew and physician Seymour Young emptied his bladder with a catheter until he learned to catheterize himself. The problem recurred the following year, and Seymour Young again provided similar treatment. The church president was so grateful that he gave his nephew a parcel of Salt Lake City real estate. 4 Fifteen years earlier, Young had boasted of his fine health and virility. By the mid-1870s, gray-headed and gray -bearded, and sometimes unable to walk, he frankly discussed the ravages of aging.



More:
For all his physical activity in his younger years and his travels throughout his life, Brigham Young was not always a well man. His teeth were so bad that he eventually had them all pulled and used dentures; before he reached that point, he was often sick in bed, or went about his business with what was described as a stiff face, which I presume was at least part of the time caused by abscesses. He chewed tobacco for a number of years to kill the constant pain in his jaw. He suffered from intestinal problems. He had the mumps in old age. He died of what we think was a ruptured appendix, although that diagnosis wasn’t available to his physicians.

And for at least a decade before his death, Brigham Young was under the necessity of catheterizing himself several times a day to pass the urine that would not come on its own. Think what that meant in an age before plastics and before disposable caths – his were made of lambskin and silver, and they had to be sterilized for constant reuse. He may have been ill from infections at times.

I remember reading that. Yeah. strange stuff. You think you've read everything. then you read this.

Just what I needed to start my day: the mental image of Old Brigham sticking things up his wee wee, and pretending that holy, consecrated oil would somehow make the process easier or more effective.

Sigh. :)

Sometimes you forget how tough the medical conditions were back then and the people that just put up with their bad health.
Since our medical technology is so good, inflation and medical costs tend to wipe out older people and future generations savings so if hard times occur in the last 20 years you might just die in poverty with assets sold off to pay for your damn pills and surgeries.