nconscious on a Baltimore street. Poe was only 40 when he died in 1849. Newspapers gave the cause of death as “congestion of the brain” and “cerebral inflammation”, which my sources said was terms that suggest doctors didn’t have a definitive explanation but they thought it was a severe neurological disorder. Another doctor from the University of Maryland Medical Center reviewed his case and was assigned to make and explain a diagnosis based on available facts and he came to the conclusion that it was a rabies infection. The case was known to be a antique because of the lack of lab data. Back then they didn’t have CT scans, or MRI’s. Before his death he was seen passing through Baltimore in later September 1849 and vanished. He turned up on Oct. 3 muttering incoherently and dressed in filthy, strange, and unusual clothing. He was taken to Church Hospital then known as Washington Medical College on Broadway where he spend four days where his doctor put very simply: “talking with spectral and imaginary objects on the walls”. So in other words he was crazy, delirious and other times he was either in a coma. Despite the widely held belief that Poe was in a drunken stupor, he showed no signs of alcohol when he was admitted to the hospital. According to medical records he had abstained from drinking after and few months earlier attending a temperance league in Richmond. One theory says his condition seemed to improve for a time, but by the evening of his third day he became combative calling out the names of family, friends and somebody named Reynolds and had to be restrained. Another theory says that he was found unconscious and remained unconscious. Bout both theories state that he died on the fourth day, October 7th at 5 am. His last words were said to be “Lord, help my poor soul”. He was buried near his grandfather in the Presbyterian cemetery. It was obvious that Poe was i...
