150 years ago today on the Mormon Trail, Brigham Young fell victim to Mountain Fever. It's an illness as familiar today as it was then. Science Specialist Ed Yeates shows us why.

The ticks back then were ancestors to the ticks on sage and brush even now.

((ED YEATES, SCIENCE SPECIALIST: "IN FACT, IN WRITTEN ADVICE FROM LDS CHURCH PUBLIC RELATIONS TO REPORTERS AND SPECTATORS WANTING TO JOIN THE WAGON TRAIN - THE SAGEBRUSH IS SHOULDER HIGH AND MOSQUITOES AND TICKS ARE EVERYWHERE."))

President Brigham Young's sickness - most likely - Colorado Tick Fever, lingered and kept him wagonbound even nine days later.

((CRAIG NICHOLS, UTAH STATE EPIDEMIOLOGIST: "AND IF YOU'RE OVER 30 AND GET COLORADO TICK FEVER, YOU'RE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO HAVE A LONG, SLOW CONVALESCENCE - SOMETIMES SEVERAL WEEKS, EVEN A COUPLE OF MONTHS BEFORE YOU REALLY FEEL WELL AGAIN."))

Fevers, sickness and injuries! Pioneers physically had very little except herbs and ointments for therapy.

(("IN EARLY PIONEER APOTHECARIES, CONSUMPTION WHICH WAS A COMMON AILMENT WAS TREATED WITH A COMBINATION OF HOREHOUND, WHITE ROOT CABBAGE AND OTHER LEAVES. ACCORDING TO THE RECIPE, "))

(("YOU WOULD THEN BOIL THE MIXTURE IN SOFT WATER TO REDUCE ITS STRENGTH, THEN ADD BLOODROOT, ANISE SEED AND ROSEWILLOW."))

Luke Johnson of the Quorum of Twelve was the Mormon Company physician. Don Enders with the LDS Church Museum reads from his old book. How about a woman who was badly burned but recovered nicely.

((DON ENDERS, LDS CHURCH MUSEUM: "THE MIDWIFE WHO DOCTORED HER APPLIED A LAYER OF LINSEED OIL AND THEN FOLLOWED THAT UP WITH A VARNISH."))

(("HERE'S ONE FOR LIVER COMPLAINT. TAKE THE WHITE OF HEN DUNG AND PART HEMP SEED, AND TWO PARTS CAPSIUM.."))

Moisten in an extract of dandelion and roll in flour and elm bark. There was also a cancer plaster.

(("IN THIS CASE, THEY SHOULD TAKE WILD INDIGO ROOT, WASHED AND CLEANED AND BOILED AND APPLY IN A PLASTER."))

(("NATIVE PLANTS, WEEDS, HOGSLARD, WHITE TURPENTINE, AND FLAXSEED OIL. IF IT WAS IN THE PIONEER ENVIRONMENT, IT MOST LIKELY MADE ITS WAY INTO A RECIPE TO PATCH A WOUND OR TREAT AN ILLNESS. ED YEATES, KSL NEWS, SALT LAKE CITY."))