Dr. Nathan Smith was in the right place, at the right time, with the right experience, and right fortitude.
This was, after all, 1813, in the most rural area of New Hampshire. The infection in Joseph’s bone (osteomyelitis) followed in the wake of an epidemic of typhoid fever that affected all the Smith children. In those days and up until the discovery of antibiotics in this century, osteomyelitis was a devastating problem. Since the days of Hippocrates of ancient Greece, the standard method of treatment had been the simple application of poultices and plasters to the inflamed flesh. This had little effect: when infection occurs in the bone, long segments of the bony shaft die, and the body, growing new bone, encases the dead material within a living layer. Inevitably, the dead bone separates and lies in the center of an abscess cavity, draining continuously or spreading infection to other parts of the body, resulting in death. Usually in the late stages the leg had to be amputated.
Read the full article written by Dr. Le Roy S. Wirthlin about Nathan Smith here:
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1978/03/discovery?lang=eng