In plain yet delicate language

The New York Times, on it's online obituary page, each month runs a collection of past obits for well known persons who died in that month. Here is how the Times obituary, filed on February 20, 1895, described the death of the great black leader Frederick Douglass:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20--Frederick Douglass dropped dead in the hallway of his residence on Anacostia Heights this evening at 7 o'clock. He had been in the highest spirits, and apparently in the best of health, despite his seventy-eight years, when death overtook him.

This morning he was driven to Washington, accompanied by his wife. She left him at the Congressional Library, and he continued to Metzerott Hall, where he attended the sessions of the Women's Council in the forenoon and the afternoon, returning to Cedar Hill, his residence, between 5 and 6 o'clock. After dining, he had a chat in the hallway with his wife about the doings of the council. He grew very enthusiastic in his explanation of one of the events of the day, when he fell upon his knees, with hands clasped.

Mrs. Douglass, thinking this was part of his description, was not alarmed, but as she looked he sank lower and lower, and finally lay stretched upon the floor, breathing his last. Realizing that he was ill, she raised his head, and then understood that he was dying. She was alone in the house, and rushed to the front door with cries for help. Some men who were near by quickly responded, and attempted to reassure the dying man. One of them called Dr. J. Stewart Harrison, and while he was injecting a restorative into the patient's arm, Mr. Douglass passed away, seemingly without pain.

I think that it is charming, this description, in the way it creates a visual image of this great man's end. And I'm not the least bit bothered by the fact that he "dropped dead" in the first paragraph and then "passed away" in the third, while Dr. Harrison "was injecting a restorative into the patient's arm." I am curious though about what was considered "a restorative" in 1895.