102 years this week - Oct 3, 1909

At general conference, Apostle George Albert Smith stops speaking after three minutes as he begins to "tremble and perspire." Apostle Reed Smoot referred two weeks earlier to Smith's "mental trouble." Since Jan Smith's diary has described symptoms of his eventual collapse. At age thirty-nine he is first general authority whose debilitating mental problems cannot be attributed to senility. Hospitalized for ten weeks at Gray's Sanitarium in Salt Lake City, Smith does not recover from this emotional breakdown until 1913. Problem re-emerges in 1930's and in 1949-51.

[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]

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