And there were some who died with
fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land—but not
so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants
and roots which God had prepared to remove the causes of diseases, to which men
were subject by the nature of the climate—(Alma 46:40)
Variant: Verse 40 was edited in 1837, during the
Prophet’s lifetime, to clarify the wording in the 1830 edition, which reads: “And
there were some who died with fevers, which at some reasons of the year, was
[sic] very frequent in the land; but not so much so with fevers, because of the
excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared, to
remove the cause of diseases which was subsequent to man, by the nature of the
climate.”
Since 1841, the italicized wording
reads: “And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the
year were very frequent in the land—but not so much so with fevers, because of
the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to
remove the causes of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the
climate.” The intent is the same in both versions, but the meaning is
clearer in the modern version. The change was first made in the 1837 edition where
it became “to which men was subject” (also in the 1841 edition, printed in
Liverpool, England—which did not have the benefits of the changes from the 1840
edition). The 1840 (printed in Nauvoo, Illinois), 1852, and subsequent editions
have corrected the grammar: “to which men were subject . . . .” (Brant A.
Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of
Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 4:613-14)
